Because I, for now, have the ability to make my computer say what I tell it to say, I have developed a small Firefox extension [1] that tells it what to say.
Silly? Yeah. Petty? Yeah. But sometimes it feels good to exercise your rights.
Your computer should say what you tell it to say
181–190 of 263 posts
Re: Your computer should say what you tell it to say
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
> as if they already operate effective mind control at systemic scale. If the logical conclusion of your reasoning is a mass mind control conspiracy, you should revisit your assumptions. > somehow they can bully into submission basically the entire universe I don't think anyone is bullying all of society. I think most people just don't care. It's really not that crazy, no mind control involved. Just good old fashione…
If they can kick the former president off his platform they can bully joe schmo off there platform. Whether you agree with the former president, he was in theory the most powerful person on the planet and had to submit to the powers of large tech companies. I think the idea that most people don't care is not a supported or found assumption either rather you just asserted it.
>he was in theory the most powerful person on the planet
You need to provide a practical definition of "most powerful" before your phrase can be evaluated.
Re: Your computer should say what you tell it to say
#183> A handful of companies have established chokepoints between buyers and sellers, performers and audiences, workers and employers, as well as families and communities. When those companies refuse to deal with you, your digital life grinds to a halt This short paragraph summarizes the (ex-ante) improbably unusual situation we have drifted into. The negatively affected stakeholders being enumerated are more or less the…
> as if they already operate effective mind control at systemic scale. If the logical conclusion of your reasoning is a mass mind control conspiracy, you should revisit your assumptions. > somehow they can bully into submission basically the entire universe I don't think anyone is bullying all of society. I think most people just don't care. It's really not that crazy, no mind control involved. Just good old fashione…
I sort of accept the apathy and ignorance argument for individuals (though crowds would get worried, even enraged if they were to receive warnings from institutions they trust, so one still needs to explain why there are none).
But the list of affected entities involves far more than addicted consumers. Digital gatekeepers interfere and reshape the information flows which form the fabric on which all economic, cultural and political activity takes place. There is already plenty of evidence of the potentially dramatic impact. Highly trained and responsible individuals in the corporate world or the public sector cannot possibly be ignorant or detached from this extreme and unprecedented concentration of control that affects their very own roles and power bases.
I didn't really want to speculate as to what perpetuates this (by historical standards) rather extraordinary situation. There is clearly some accommodation taking place. E.g when the entity now known as Meta attempted to introduce a digital currency it was summarily pushed back into its corner.
The mind control possibility was a joke, but - mind you - conspiracy theories thrive in the lack of transparency.
Re: Your computer should say what you tell it to say
#184I'm curious as to why this is being flagged/downvoted. Seems like somebody doesn't want it on the front page of HN...
Re: Your computer should say what you tell it to say
#185I think a realistic description/story from real experience I've had as a security engineer might help some people understand why this will end up so bad. I've worked with banks, who are among the most security-minded of organizations. It's not because they're security nerds, it's because the cost of getting hacked is astronomical, and because regulations require them to be "as secure as possible." Banks won't be chom…
I work in a bank. Until a year ago, our passwords are 8 characters max, no special characters, upper and lowercase letters are equal. We were running IE7 up until 2 years ago. A huge amount of the business is still organized around sending excel sheets to each other, with no sidechannel validation. The fact that you recieved an excel sheet from some email is treated as proof that it's valid. Last I checked we were al…
> Until a year ago, our passwords are 8 characters max, no special characters, upper and lowercase letters are equal.
That’s pretty good. A major Canadian bank until ~2020 had 6 character limit passwords (possibly you could enter more, but only the first six count) and mapped all alpha characters to numbers in groups of 3 (so your assigned telephone banking PIN was just a “hash” of your password).
Re: Your computer should say what you tell it to say
#186I think a realistic description/story from real experience I've had as a security engineer might help some people understand why this will end up so bad. I've worked with banks, who are among the most security-minded of organizations. It's not because they're security nerds, it's because the cost of getting hacked is astronomical, and because regulations require them to be "as secure as possible." Banks won't be chom…
all the CDNs like Cloudflare, and it will be a simple checkbox
When this happens will this accidentally create a new business model of people selling VPN-like access that mimics WEI or uses a farm of cell phones to create a proxy farm of sorts? What else might people do to circumvent this?
Re: Your computer should say what you tell it to say
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
We can't even agree on who the good guys and bad guys are. Is a bank bad for excluding certain browsers?
> Is a bank bad for excluding certain browsers? Yes, because it's stupid; they don't need to. The bank cares about correctly identifying who I am, not what client I am using. Nor do they exclude certain browsers because those browsers make it easier for a user to lie about who they are; they don't. Banks exclude certain browsers because their technically incompetent coders convinced their technically incompetent mana…
As someone wrote in one of the top comments, banks will use it because regulators will ask them to.
Re: Your computer should say what you tell it to say
#188>You can choose not to send this to the remote server, but you lose the ability to send an altered or randomized description of your device and its software if you think that's best for you. The EFF is being misleading here by conflating the attestation taken and fingerprintable information like a user agent. An attestation taken does not contain information about the device that can be used to identify since the dat…
> WEI doesn't prevent you from participating in the web or needing to meet someone else's specification. You can even make an attestation service for your own browser. As always, Google will do its best to ensure it PRACTICALLY does, while denying it at the same time by pointing out that "you can make your own Google". > because the physical analog, fraud, is illegal, I don't know about the US, but in Poland abusive…
>Lying about the device seems to be the digital equivalent
Not all lying is equal. If an ad network uses WEI to avoid lies made to defraud them their goal is not to be anticompetitive.
Re: Your computer should say what you tell it to say
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Is a bank bad for excluding certain browsers? Yes, because it's stupid; they don't need to. The bank cares about correctly identifying who I am, not what client I am using. Nor do they exclude certain browsers because those browsers make it easier for a user to lie about who they are; they don't. Banks exclude certain browsers because their technically incompetent coders convinced their technically incompetent mana…
As someone wrote in one of the top comments, banks will use it because regulators will ask them to.
Yes, if it becomes a regulatory requirement. But it shouldn't.
Re: Your computer should say what you tell it to say
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right now, many banks require a mobile app, which can only be installed from an app store, which is only available on devices that you don't control. Even if they have a web interface, you need the mobile app to login.
What banks are those? My grandma isn't going to buy a smartphone to use her bank.
n26, for example.