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Banned book library in a wi-fi smart light bulb

richardosgood.com

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Re: Banned book library in a wi-fi smart light bulb

#321

Post by fnordpiglet »

Schlagbohrer wrote: post #171
fnordpiglet wrote: post #161

Great rabbit hole but the flaw is the bulb might not be obvious but the book would be on a network scan someone suspected electronic dead drops.

But it is so spatially limited, only accessible within the wifi range of the bulb, it would be pretty challenging to thoroughly root these out from across a city or region.

A thumb drive would be even harder but more obvious in its purpose. The bulb is good because it hides in plain sight. But it requires being within sight to be meaningful. But once it is it’ll be broadcasting its existence over standard protocols.

I guess the key is to disguise it further by making it entirely like normal. I’d perhaps give the SSID two passwords. One which is the normal configuration password and the other enables the port for your connection.

Re: Banned book library in a wi-fi smart light bulb

#322

Post by deadbabe »

okeuro49 wrote: post #291
BeepyJoop wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just tech enthusiasts being socially inept. There is literally no discourse to be had from this comment, infact it only serves to detract from the main point of the article

It is the fact that this tool would only be providing minors with these "banned books" that shows a lack of social awareness. It is the choice of the individual to base their project around these "banned books", which invites this discourse.

“Banned books” is just a safe term to use for something whose real purpose would be to facilitate sharing warez, snuff films, child porn, whistleblowing… etc. Get a grip.

Re: Banned book library in a wi-fi smart light bulb

#323

Post by mothballed »

wiml wrote: post #81
zuzululu wrote: post #19

I'm surprised there are banned books with 1st amendment exists in America? I'm curious as to what these are. I think its rather silly that books can be banned.

There's a certain amount of censorship of classified information published by (ex-)military, and that kind of thing, but it can be and is challenged in court. Purely obscene material is also not protected by the 1st, but since the 1970s, the bar for that has been placed very, very high. The closest I can think of offhand is that for about a year during the pandemic, Twitter suppressed gratuitous COVID misinformation…

Jordan Derrick (Ashley Dugan) recently had a youtube video on making RDX pulled and criminally charged with "distribution of explosives information to terrorists" for publicly sharing the public domain patented/documented synthesis (going back to a German patent all the way in the 19th century IIRC) of RDX explosives and denied bail for "hate speech" of using the Israeli flag as a doormat (which was actually in the indictment).

Re: Banned book library in a wi-fi smart light bulb

#324

Post by jl6 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #310
john_strinlai wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find the trend of redefining or twisting terms to serve a specific cause really counterproductive. which term is being redefined?

In the context of supplying banned books in the software of a lightbulb, I expect banned to mean a China style ban where possession can get you punished. Not the (current) US version where certain taxpayer funded entities cannot provide the book. But there might not be a better word for the latter scenario. Surely, few oppose libraries from “banning” pornographic books, so some level of discretion must be used by adm…

> But there might not be a better word for the latter scenario.

How about age-gating?

Re: Banned book library in a wi-fi smart light bulb

#325

Post by havblue »

steviedotboston wrote: post #268

Cool project, except these aren't really "banned" books. thats a misleading term. In most of these cases, the book isn’t actually banned. Nobody is being arrested for owning it, Amazon isn’t forbidden from selling it, and adults can still read it whenever they want. What’s really being debated is whether a particular school library, children’s section, or curriculum should include a book. That’s not the same thing as…

On my news feed today I saw a Newsweek story about how someone found a dvd of Birth of a Nation at Goodwill, not knowing what the plot was.

As far as I can tell the standard for a book being "banned" is just that the librarian or the bookseller is sympathetic to the book's message and thinks it should be more widely read while politicians or parents might think it's inappropriate or they disagree with the message.

If you put the shoe on the other foot and name a book that's out of print because publishers dislike the material or it's problematic in the eyes of librarians, I don't think it fits the standard. Birth of a Nation for example is not a "banned movie" and neither is Song of the South. So the standard is entirely set by teachers, librarians and booksellers.

Re: Banned book library in a wi-fi smart light bulb

#326

Post by margalabargala »

tinfoilhatter wrote: post #104
margalabargala wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As if Neo-Nazis were and are the only people capable of authoring propaganda Of course they aren't. But that's no argument for distributing it.

No, the argument for distributing it would be that other propaganda is widely distributed without question, so if one wants to arrive at anything even close to an objective account of what transpired during that time in history, all propaganda should be examined and learned about. The truth usually lies somewhere in the middle, and we certainly aren't getting to it by blindly accepting one narrative over another.

No, because extremist propaganda does not "average out" to an objective center.

If you want to distribute it in a box labeled "extremist propaganda", to study it as such, sure.

But if your society has some extremist propaganda in the wild, distributing more, different extremist propaganda will make things strictly worse.

Re: Banned book library in a wi-fi smart light bulb

#327

Post by steviedotboston »

sfink wrote: post #312
steviedotboston wrote: post #268

Cool project, except these aren't really "banned" books. thats a misleading term. In most of these cases, the book isn’t actually banned. Nobody is being arrested for owning it, Amazon isn’t forbidden from selling it, and adults can still read it whenever they want. What’s really being debated is whether a particular school library, children’s section, or curriculum should include a book. That’s not the same thing as…

You may be overthinking this. "Banned" in this case means that the usual person or people who choose what books to include are being overridden by a party with more clout. From the perspective of a school librarian, for example, book X has been banned. They no longer have the option of including it. (This is even true in the case where the librarian would not have included it anyway, for their own reasons.) They are…

The FBI is not telling school librarians to not stock copies of To Kill a Mockingbird. I really don't see the issue with local entities like a school board having some say in material that is available in a school. That can differ across the country, and thats fine. That's what our country is supposed to be like.

But a library acting like they are doing some brave act of resistance by putting out a stack of books that are widely available, have always been widely available, and will always be, and saying they are "banned books, this is banned books week, look at all the books that have been banned!" when really they are books that a school board in wisconsin said shouldn't be in an elementary school library because the sex scenes are not appropriate for 7 year olds seems really silly to me.

Re: Banned book library in a wi-fi smart light bulb

#328

Post by Forgeties79 »

p-e-w wrote: post #259
Forgeties79 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk I have managed to live my whole life without inflicting violence on others. Literally never been in a physical altercation.

Well, presumably you outsource the job of inflicting violence to others, like most people do. Voting for pretty much any political candidate is equivalent to doing so.

And every time you use hackernews you’re contributing to the climate crisis in some form or other. These kinds of comments are not productive.

Re: Banned book library in a wi-fi smart light bulb

#329

Post by mothballed »

havblue wrote: post #325
steviedotboston wrote: post #268

Cool project, except these aren't really "banned" books. thats a misleading term. In most of these cases, the book isn’t actually banned. Nobody is being arrested for owning it, Amazon isn’t forbidden from selling it, and adults can still read it whenever they want. What’s really being debated is whether a particular school library, children’s section, or curriculum should include a book. That’s not the same thing as…

On my news feed today I saw a Newsweek story about how someone found a dvd of Birth of a Nation at Goodwill, not knowing what the plot was. As far as I can tell the standard for a book being "banned" is just that the librarian or the bookseller is sympathetic to the book's message and thinks it should be more widely read while politicians or parents might think it's inappropriate or they disagree with the message. If…

I think of stuff like Luty who was challenged in the UK under the terrorism act for sharing books on improvised firearms, Ashley Dugan who was charged with "distributing explosives training to terrorists" and some of his youtube videos pulled for sharing the well known public domain synthesis of RDX explosives.

These are non-sexually-obscene informational speech yet the librarians and teachers don't actually want you looking at these banned media because they could actually be used to challenge the established order and system rather than just shuffling who is in power to possibly the guy the librarian likes.

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