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Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

bbc.com

141–150 of 230 posts

Re: Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

#141
We live in a world where large corporations, FAANG companies in particular have greater money and resources than entire nations. This is not a situation with historicla paralel. But it's remained largely irrelevant militarily because those companies remaining neutral - like Switzerland. If they become politisized, and act on that alignment; it potentially openes up a whole new vector of military targets which are otherwise unthinkable. I don't like thinking about the future consequences on that trajectory.

Re: Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

#143
post #3

This is why I have my own domain and control the MX records on the DNS on it, so that I can reroute email to a new email provider, if needed (I pay for Fastmail). Another nice thing about having a catch-all on own domain is that you can sign up to each service with a unique email address, e.g. @ , which makes it easy to see if any services ever sold your address.

Where can I read more about this "catch-all" domain setup? Interested to implement this solution. Any resources you recommend?

Re: Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

#144

US gov tells companies that xyz groups are under sanctions (which is good, actually) and that they must put effort into preventing them from using their products (also good, actually). The problem is that they are punished for true negatives (in the press and potentially by the gov) but not for false positives (except for articles like this). The end result is overzealous bullshit that ends up hurting innocent people…

You get to an important issue: Type 1 vs Type 2 errors - precision vs recall. Any system is going to have errors, so what do you prioritize? The company has only limited control over this choice, as you also point out that the gov't will punish them for false negatives but not false positives. So the company prioritizes recall over precision. But you also imply that the gov't should punish BOTH types of errors, but I…

I'm not advocating for the gov to punish false positives, I don't know what exactly the issue is that's causing them, maybe incomplete information, maybe lack of resources, likely a combination of issues. Ultimately you're right though, there will be innocent people who are affected by sanctions

Re: Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can call your bank. They can verify your identity over the phone and banks do so routinely.

Some banks do so routinely. Not all banks in all countries do this. One of my banks required me to email my passport, drivers license, and case number to the person I was talking to over the phone in order to prove my identity. My passport was 1000 miles away. My drivers license was expired (was living in NYC at the time, and not driving). My bank had no physical branches outside of the state of Louisiana. All of thi…

The BBC has edited the article and the line I quoted I can no longer find. I was pretty sure that particular person the quote was from was described as living in the US (as is another one of the examples in the article).

One of the other individuals in the article lives in Saudi Arabia, which has a very highly developed banking system.

Re: Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

#146
post #50

If technology becomes necessary to participate in society, and if we cede control of that technology to unaccountable dystopian hypercorporations like Microsoft, Google, and Apple, then we're setting ourselves up for disaster.

yes. the only alternative i know of is free software and peer-to-peer networking on a cryptographically secure basis. unfortunately there isn't currently either a viable free software political movement or a viable cypherpunk political movement, so the near future looks very dark. perhaps after a few generations of hitherto unimaginable atrocities things might start to improve, but it is now too late to prevent those atrocities

however, historically speaking, regimes of oppression have often been dismayingly stable, long outliving the states that establish them—consider that the traditional liberties eliminated by julius caesar in 049 bce, diocletian in the late third century, and constantine in the early fourth century were not regained until the late medieval or even modern era (the final end of the roman empire in 01453, the end of serfdom in the 13th through 19th centuries, the confederation of eight cantons in about 01315, the re-establishment of a senate in the us in 01789, the french revolution in 01799, etc.)

federated systems like mastodon (or email) are a step in the right direction, but we need a decentralized system, without single points of failure, rather than just a federated one

Re: Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

#147
post #99

It is incredibly frustrating to realize that a lot of companies are within their right to deny you service as soon as you even _appear_ to pose a risk to them. Geico recently denied my renewal of insurance because they said their underwriters received notification that I use my vehicle for business. (I don't.) I have spent hours trying to explain to them that this is a mistake, but they have zero interest in providin…

unfortunately they do not

Re: Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

#148

Every time I read a story like this, about MS or Google or Twitter or which-ever big corporate it is, I'm so glad that I exited these platforms and years ago. I left LinkedIn before MS bought it, because it was clear it was being copied by all and sundry. I left GitHub once MS bought it (and I thank God for that, ever time I see another story about MS being awful). I never used Google - they were obviously evil and f…

>I may be completely wrong, but I think large companies are completely amoral

For one, you are right, and two, they are actively incentivized to be immoral. Doing something in a moral way is to take something extra into account - morality. Taking into account, as an action, costs extra resources, which translates to money or risk, but then, risk also translates into money. So, what we end up with is that being moral is being handicapped. Money can be made by avoiding it.

The situation is especially worse when the other participants, the competitors, are also not moral. They can simply out-price a moral participants - people are less likely to buy the thing for its ethical "real price", if they can get a similar one for much cheaper. This can clearly be seen even in markets where being moral is a bonus, like, I'd say, how the current market is. "Morally superior" is a product differentiator, with labels like "bio", "organic", "fair", "ethical", "free from", "vegan" - even the ol' PU leather being rebranded as "vegan leather". So even in a context like this, non-morally-superior products sell way more than moral ones. So the incentives for companies are not really there, not just from an operational, but from a market standpoint as well.

>that is is an emergent property.

I agree, and I think it's part of the general human experience, especially with taking responsibility for anything that has impact. Attention and possibility of action is limited, so even if the perfectly moral course of action would be known, it might not be possible to enact it. And then, the arguments are endless as to what's moral and what not, and what part of that should people be engaged in. This is all too much to handle for an individual, so, even if morality is desired, sub-optimal decisions will be made on a daily, as part of life. Which is, in many ways, no different to when a company makes them - with respect to the size and impact though, of course.

Re: Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

#149
post #47
post #3

This is why I have my own domain and control the MX records on the DNS on it, so that I can reroute email to a new email provider, if needed (I pay for Fastmail). Another nice thing about having a catch-all on own domain is that you can sign up to each service with a unique email address, e.g. @ , which makes it easy to see if any services ever sold your address.

> you can sign up to each service with a unique email address, e.g. @ , which makes it easy to see if any services ever sold your address. Pro tip on this, use gibberish if you want a true canary. I know it's tempting to use microsoft@ or ms@ or msft@ etc, but companies are getting smarter about selling emails and filter those out.

That’s exactly why I’m doing it. Most people don’t need a canary, they just want to be left the fk alone.

Re: Microsoft cutting crucial link to Gaza, Palestinians say

#150
post #3

This is why I have my own domain and control the MX records on the DNS on it, so that I can reroute email to a new email provider, if needed (I pay for Fastmail). Another nice thing about having a catch-all on own domain is that you can sign up to each service with a unique email address, e.g. @ , which makes it easy to see if any services ever sold your address.

Where can I read more about this "catch-all" domain setup? Interested to implement this solution. Any resources you recommend?

Literally just register a domain, choose a popular mail provider and read their docs on how to use your own domain with them. It’s widely supported.
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