131–140 of 357 posts
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You should watch Yes Minister. They certainly don't.
They do. The tenders don't write themselves. The scale of corruption is unprecedented, yet nothing - as it seems - is being reported or even questioned by civil service.
They do question it when they don't agree with it. Which is to say they do agree with a lot of things being done. And that is as far as I can say.
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I used to agree with this, but now I don't actually think I do. Apple's app privacy report can be used to guarantee network access for any iOS app - https://support.apple.com/en-us/102188
That only shows the domain eg facebook.com, not facebook.com/tracking-script. There's no reason that they can't put all the bad stuff on the same essential, first-party domain needed for the app which makes DNS blocking and viewing not effective. That's why you can't block youtube ads with DNS, only with a browser-level adblocker because the browser adblocker is able to block the specific paths. You can view the full…
For me, right now, I think it's conceivably a security advantage if the source isn't public. I know security by obscurity isn't a strategy alone, but with an incredibly difficult surface area to attack, I think user's using the app are very well protected, except for against nation states.
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I often also wonders if ideological zealots ever thinks of this passage while pushing their agenda for control: ...and it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast could even speak and cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the…
Those who would think of such a passage (or any biblical passage) and those who push for a total-control agenda are disjoint sets. Communism and fascism were both fueled by atheism (either explicit or functional), not a Judeo-Christian worldview. "Ohne Gott und Sonnenschein bringen wir die Ernte ein." (Without God and without sun, we will get the harvest done.) - the slogan of East Germany in 1975 when people were hu…
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My impression is that people who can work on stuff like that are the kind who just take the stuff in the world for granted. "This is how the world is, we need digital restrictions so now we need to implement them." "I don't have a say about whether DRM or remote attestation is standard business practice or not, it is just how it is." This is akin to how two kinds of people respond to law. The first kind think "This i…
Somebody had to work on it before it was how the world is. When Microsoft proposed a scheme involving remote attestation and DRM in 2003, the New York Times published a critical article. Google SafetyNet a decade later barely got a whimper out of major tech outlets, much less the mainstream press. https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/30/business/technology-a-saf...
The mindset the parent described extends to what they're asked to do. They don't challenge it. It doesn't have to already be law for them to accept it and build it. It's enough that the ask comes from authority (a boss, a government) and pays.
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> My impression is that people who can work on stuff like that are the kind who just take the stuff in the world for granted. "This is how the world is, we need digital restrictions so now we need to implement them." "I don't have a say about whether DRM or remote attestation is standard business practice or not, it is just how it is." I like to call those people "ventablackpilled". Being blackpilled is all about glo…
Ironically, the very OP statement is exactly that: trying to make the world a worse place because they believe that that is how the world works. The solution to avoiding dictatorship is engaging in politics and preventing dictatorship directly through that. Trying to retreat into the (perceived) wilderness and build barriers to dictatorship doesn't really work. But since people drafting that statement don't believe t…
The UK gov is just getting worse and worse at law making
The UK should just be banned from modern technology until their government has evolved socially enough to respect privacy. Companies need to pull out and stay out, because that's the only way the UK government will learn a lesson.
I'm thinking something that automatically scans your computer for porn or other things, like ripped film mp4s and sends it to the goverment to be analysed.
Or perhaps little gps trackers that children are mandated to wear at all times.
What the UK is trying to do here is evil and authoritarian. Its the sort of thing people brushed off as conspiracy theories not long ago. It is completely and utterly unacceptable.
They are just plain embracing a culture of paranoia, cowardice and extreme surveillance. I wouldn't care because I don't live there except the dystopian tech and business models they're developing ends up crossing the seas.
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Surveillance which violates the privacy or other rights of lawful citizens is worse than crime, I argue. The criminal fears the police, but the government obeys nobody. Security cameras in public areas, I don't have a problem. Government mandated scanning software running on my PC, yeah, I have a problem. It amounts to a warrantless search.
It's no more "warrantless search" than object recognition in your photo app. Signal deliberately misrepresents the policy, which is about connecting (already existing, local) object recognition to (already existing, local) established adulthood of the user.
> The government therefore wants Apple and Google to block nudity across the whole device by default, so they can only be deactivated via age assurance.
All smartphones and tablets will be required to detect and block adult content on the device. You can avoid it by showing photo ID, but it's bizarre that the default state should be to assume the user is not an adult until proven otherwise.
Article 1 of the ECHR guarantees that "every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions". "Until they show government ID" isn't in there!
Perhaps I'm jumping the gun to assume this will be used as a precedent to require on-device scanning for illegal content, and further extended from smartphones to desktop PCs. However, I'm not optimistic.
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Being pro-surveillance is the same thing as being pro-authoritarian unless you provide an alternate solution to prevent abuse of power.
We already have warrants, judicial oversight and public audits to prevent abuse of power. Not sure what's authoritarian about standard overt surveillance.