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U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

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Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#151

Post by EGreg »

squibonpig wrote: post #105
EGreg wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might like my new startup, then: https://safebots.ai I spent way too much time on actually building this — with Claude and double checking everything — so an article I publish can be OK to push out. We aren’t building a bridge for thousands of cars here, it’s an article. A lot of things are automated and 95% of the time they are correct. The key is knowing whether the last mile is worth fixing, if the consequence…

I read through your presentation but I still feel pretty confused about what ur startup does. Could you explain it?

Shimman is wrong. The goal is much bigger, and almost the opposite of what he thinks. It's trying to solve the problem of people chasing "slivers" of money and selling out, which happened in Web2 and Web3: https://safebots.ai/singularity.pdf

What the startup does is make a verifiably trusted, zero-configuration, turnkey environment for businesses to move their data into and run AI workloads on, without worrying about their data being stolen, or some Agents doing unpredictable things. The environment is super-secured, with no ssh. It's an appliance, with over-the-air M of N updates. Think more "Tesla car" and less "OpenClaw". That's the foundation.

That environment then builds everything around a graph database, for people, organizations, and even code. We have Grokers that can ingest a codebase statically once, and then present the graph databases as a far better "RAG" than cosine similarity and pinecone vector databases.

At its most basic level: Agents can't be trusted. We want predictable Workflows, not agents. They can do 99% of everything Agents can, if done properly, and the remaining 1% are the dangerous parts https://safebots.ai/agents.html

It's a lot of innovations at once, including:

Collaborative Bots that are safer than agents.

Workflows and tools that can read, reason and propose actions.

Policies that must be satisfied before actions can be taken.

Logging of everything. Verifiable security and audits for SOC2 compliance etc. etc.

Everything is configurable and designed for serious businesses, not a grandma that finished a Chinese course on how to install OpenClaw on her terminal and not get pwned

Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#152

Post by cogman10 »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #147
cogman10 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (Most) libertarians still support addressing externalities. Not really. They support it in terms of individual responsibility and not as a government role. > The standard libertarian solution for something unproven would be "it's your job to purchase insurance for this new way of doing things" No libertarian I'm aware of would force someone to purchase insurance. But it also does not address the externalities probl…

> Not really. They support it in terms of individual responsibility and not as a government role. To a libertarian, a major part of the government's job is to enforce contracts and property rights. Externalities are mass infringements on other people's property rights, that need to either be avoided or appropriately compensated. Emitting CO2 does damage to a common good everyone has an interest in. > No libertarian I…

The problem you'll have in a libertarian framework is who can bring a claim against who for CO2 emissions and for how much?

Like, let's say I have a slam dunk case that my $1000 tree died due to climate change. I have the receipts, documentation, everything (unrealistic as it is). How would I go around recovering the damages I'm owed? Who would figure out that "Ted there who drove to work for the last 20 years contributed $0.0001 of your damages. The concrete plant over there contributed $0.001. The coal plant $0.01".

I'll also point out you did not address the rolling coal problem.

Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#153

Post by red-iron-pine »

VLM wrote: post #39
logicchains wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why F-Droid eventually won't work on new Android phones.

We're going to have two phones, the big brother phone you usually leave at home for banking apps and tax filing and boring stuff like that, locked down and nanny up, and the "real phone" from aliexpress or whatever that is purchased rooted and you actually live your real life upon. I would not be surprised to see double sided phone cases so we can carry our big brother phone with our real phone. There is some prior a…

this is basically what I do now.

gmail and a "work-ish" phone. official stuff like DMV or banks use this. my work requires MFA and auth apps and they live here too. no SIM card and mostly lives at my desk.

my main phone for doin stuff is a different phone with a custom ROM and nothin but f-droid.

Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#154

Post by rectang »

redsocksfan45 wrote: post #91
legitster wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was on a bike ride with my young kid. We were going up a hill and being passed by a lifted diesel truck. I could tell that the driver was desperately working the throttle to avoid accidentally blowing smoke in my kids' face. Congratulations, buddy. You've designed your life around being such a massive unlikeable asshole to random strangers. But for a brief moment you understood shame. I'm generally pretty libertari…

Guy tries to drive courtously around you and this is how you take it? You're unhinged.

If I understand correctly, the trucker was set up to roll coal on other people, and only made an exception for this specific kid on a bike. It's not "unhinged" to stand up for others who have been targeted even while you were spared — it's just common decency.

Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#155

Post by KennyBlanken »

mrgoldenbrown wrote: post #145
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those, like me, who aren't familiar with the term "rolling coal": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal

I think the wikipedia page downplays how often it's used to try to hurt or annoy cyclists, pedestrians, or anyone who looks liberal/foreign. It's not just anti environmentalists who do it, it's a general MAGA thing.

"Try" to hurt?

Half-burned diesel particulate is absolutely cancerous, it can enter the bloodstream and cross the blood-brain barrier and they're generating clouds of it, probably thousands of times more than what a modern 18 wheeler puts out in half an hour of driving. And they're doing it to someone breathing hard.

If I sprayed some cancerous chemical in someone's face, I'd be arrested within the hour. I'd be on the regional news, even.

The double standards around motor vehicles never cease to amaze.

Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#156

Post by IncreasePosts »

rectang wrote: post #154
redsocksfan45 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guy tries to drive courtously around you and this is how you take it? You're unhinged.

If I understand correctly, the trucker was set up to roll coal on other people, and only made an exception for this specific kid on a bike. It's not "unhinged" to stand up for others who have been targeted even while you were spared — it's just common decency.

But anyone who "rolls coal" doesn't have a truck set up to always do that. They'll have a switch on their console which makes it happen (or something digital). You don't need to try to not roll coal if you don't want to. Probably what happened is the person just drove a normal truck and knows that diesel fumes are stinky and tried to coast by the bikers so there would be the least amount of exhaust near them.

Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#157

Post by ericmay »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #127
ericmay wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The case is against EZLynk, not the folks using the product. > The question is, how did the investigation got started, unless they already can see that people are misusing the product? And since they obviously must be able to see that people are misusing it, why don't they instead obtain evidence about those specific users, that they must have observed already? Well you'd have to get into the legal case for the speci…

> How else do you get what might be illegal products off the shelves? Your premise is that there is a difference in the product. The product is a piece of hardware that connects your phone/laptop to the car's computer. Are you using it to program the computer to bleed the brakes, or are you using it to program the computer to defeat emissions tests? It's the same hardware dongle either way. A roll of duct tape isn't…

Your understanding about how this works is incorrect, I think that's the problem.

If a product being sold is primarily being used for a purpose which violates the law and does not otherwise have fair usage the government can and has pursued and won legal cases resulting in the product being banned. That is no different here. The reason for interviewing consumers is to help determine what the product is being used for to help inform the legal case. It may turn out that it's primarily used for fair usage or "practical" purposes which don't violate the law and the DOJ may drop their case. It may turn out everyone is using these to violate the Clean Air Act in which case it will likely and should be banned.

> A roll of duct tape isn't a different product when it's being used in the commission of a crime.

If the vast majority of the time the roll of duct tape was used in the commission of a crime, it absolutely could and likely would be banned.

Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#158

Post by KennyBlanken »

rootusrootus wrote: post #69
legitster wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was on a bike ride with my young kid. We were going up a hill and being passed by a lifted diesel truck. I could tell that the driver was desperately working the throttle to avoid accidentally blowing smoke in my kids' face. Congratulations, buddy. You've designed your life around being such a massive unlikeable asshole to random strangers. But for a brief moment you understood shame. I'm generally pretty libertari…

> I'm generally pretty libertarian, but I'm all for throwing the book at these guys. To me that seems perfectly in line with being libertarian. One of the legitimate roles of the government is protecting people from violence by other people. Libertarians are not anarchists.

Libertarians consider anyone doing things they don't like to be anarchists, and anything they do, to be "freedom."

You ever notice that areas with very high libertarian numbers tend to have lots of problems with illegal dumping, and lots of people who think registering and insuring their vehicle is optional?

Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#159

Post by IncreasePosts »

kstrauser wrote: post #34
cogman10 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'd HAPPILY report every single truck rolling coal around me if there was a place to report that information. Hell, I've seen a truck roll coal around cop cars and, obviously, nothing happened. This is just gross privacy intrusion masquerading as "protecting the environment". We don't need 100% compliance to the law and simple prosecution/ticketing of obvious violations would go a long way towards solving the p…

I watched a pickup roll coal in the middle of freaking East Bay, literally within site of downtown San Francisco, on a bicyclist. I reported their license to the California Air Resources Board, and not longer after that I saw it up on jacks in a neighborhood auto shop. That made my day. Asshole.

Here in Colorado we have a new anti coal rolling law, with a hotline you can call it in on.

You know what happens when you call it in? The government sends a letter to the registered address of the truck saying, basically "Hey! Your emissions are very wasteful, you should get that checked out!". Glad California seems to have some teeth to the emissions laws.

Re: U.S. DOJ demands Apple and Google unmask over 100k users of car-tinkering app

#160

Post by m463 »

traderj0e wrote: post #109
midtake wrote: post #93

This "car-tinkering app" is used as a glorified GameShark for deleting factory emissions controls, I don't feel sorry for anyone who uses this to roll coal or whatever. Instead of investigating everyone on the list of users of this app, should the government instead ban diesel engines knowing their emissions controls software will be defeated? Should environmental regulations be relaxed? What is really the solution h…

They want testimonies to use against the app. The solution they're trying to pursue is to outlaw the app, not investigate its users.

...via investigating users.
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