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Neofeudalism and the Digital Manor

locusmag.com

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Re: Neofeudalism and the Digital Manor

#221

Post by ethbr0 »

opportune wrote: post #176
f430 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If what you are communicating needs to be guaranteed to never be crackable, you only need to use the oldest and most secure way of communicating before the days of internet and computers: short wave transmitted one time pad codes. The reason that number stations continue to operate is that it really is the best way to communicate/order under surveillance which almost certainly is happening in every embassy in non-fri…

Let’s take a step back here. Everybody has a different standard of privacy they want. There are different levels of trade offs they can make as they become more secure. What you’re describing is the top level of security but it’s not very convenient to use. It also uses private keys which makes establishing a new connection challenging. There are as I see it a few main security modes: stopping automated surveillance…

> Governments likely have access to back doors and 0days that can compromise anyone

* anyone running a certain configuration

Bugs don't exist in a vacuum. They exist in a specific piece of software, which usually supports a specific feature (e.g. Flash, Microsoft Word, or TCP/IP).

Curious in more informed opinions, but it seems unlikely there's a large universe of zero days applicable to every configuration out there.

Consequently, a huge part of security is (and has always been!) limiting unnecessary code. Specifically, code accepting input from network connections.

Parent's point about crypto algorithms is a form of this: one reason they're so secure, and proveably so, is because they have extremely limited attack surfaces. They take this input, they produce this output.

Re: Neofeudalism and the Digital Manor

#222

Post by nickpp »

m4rtink wrote: post #212
nickpp wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Private sector development funding optimises for drawn-out therapies that manage a condition indefinitely rather than ones that cure it. And still, Moderna and BioNTech came up with vaccines for COVID-19, not therapies.

I don't think this is a good counterexample given the very specific circumstances involved & clear requirements to get a vorking COVID vaccine ASAP.

OK, do you have some examples (not counter) then?

Re: Neofeudalism and the Digital Manor

#223

Post by amelius »

walterbell wrote: post #87
amelius wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you apply security updates?

Immediately after a clean boot, apply security update, reboot to test, then immediately shutdown and allow that snapshot to persist.

Wouldn't it be better to do a reinstall of the OS in the VM (or use a previous image), apply the security updates, and then reinstall any other software that was on the system?

Re: Neofeudalism and the Digital Manor

#224

Post by adwn »

medlyyy wrote: post #158
ardy42 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The lack of a monopoly creates competition which accelerates innovation and leads to cheaper, higher quality products for the consumer. The person who invents a product should simply be one competitor in the market, they can have the first mover advantage, but shouldn't be allowed to control the market entirely. But that obviously wouldn't as work well, because: 1. The inventor would pay the R&D costs with no good…

These arguments get trotted out every time this comes up, and they are bad. >1. The inventor would pay the R&D costs with no good way to recoup them, because he'd be competing against knockoffs who didn't have to make that investment, and can price accordingly. You'd be putting the actual inventor at a disadvantage. It's now clear that there are plenty of ways to fund R&D without relying on IP law to recoup the costs…

Discussions like the current one make me wish we had huge but relatively affordable space habitats [1]. People with a radical idea for restructuring society [2] could pool their resources, build/buy a space habitat, and prove that their way is superior to the status quo (or fail miserably, or something inbetween) [3]. This way, empirical evidence could be collected, and radical ideas could be tested and adopted if they turn out to be beneficial. The best way to convince others is to demonstrate an implementation.

Unfortunately, this is not possible on Earth, because pretty much every square meter is already claimed by some entity, but there's virtually infinite room in the solar system.

[1] Like O'Neill cylinders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder or the Stanford torus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_torus

[2] Regular contenders are UBI, abolishing IP or private property, and communism.

[3] Kind of like in Scott Alexander's "Archipelago and Atomic Communitarianism" essay: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/07/archipelago-and-atomic...

Re: Neofeudalism and the Digital Manor

#226

Post by cannabis_sam »

wait_a_minute wrote: post #53
breck wrote: post #36

We need to abolish IP Laws (aka "Imaginary Property" aka "Illogical Property" aka "Incongruent Property" aka "Invalidates Property Laws"—the other term is a big lie, don't repeat it). Not "reform". Not "compromise". Abolish. If 2020 taught me anything, it's that society can come close to the brink pretty quickly. I thought there was an inevitable trend toward freedom, but recently think it's perilous. We need ideas t…

I am genuinely interested in understanding how we could have innovation in a world where a creator is not entitled to benefits from their invention. Including any monetary benefits if they so choose.

> a world where a creator is not entitled to benefits from their invention.

Do you mean a world where YouTube takes money from creators and give it to corporations that claim ownership of public domain music, or do you mean independent artist who gets zero money from their Spotify plays, since the three company cartel of record companies have forced streaming services to pool the artists’ money and then give most of that money to the biggest artists fronted by those same three record companies..?

This abuse is wholly dependent on the outrageous IP laws we live under.

Which creators are you talking about?

Re: Neofeudalism and the Digital Manor

#227

Post by boomlinde »

adwn wrote: post #216
boomlinde wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then again, I work all week with little entitlement to the "intellectual property" I generate, but I still receive income for my work. Making a livelihood by getting paid for the work I do and its value on the market, and the time I spend doing it and its value to me is the situation most people are in. Being able to extract substantial rent in effective perpetuity from e.g. some copyright you own is a luxury only af…

> Making a livelihood by getting paid for the work I do and its value on the market [...] You're only getting paid because people have to pay you the market rate for your work. If a musician creates and records a song [1], releases it at market rates (say, 2 USD), and everyone can just copy it without repercussions, he won't be able to make a living, no matter how productive he is. [1] Which entails many hours of wor…

It shouldn't be surprising that an economy will grow to depend on copyright if it exists and is enforceable.

It's really a strange, indirect way to go about it, though. It doesn't in itself incentivize further work (a lot of the music I still regularly pay for was recorded by dead artists in defunct studios, so no incentive short of Frankenstein will compel them to make more) and it may or may not cover the investment the artist/studio made in terms of actual work and equipment costs.

The up front costs is in creating and recording the music, which consumers could pay for instead of copies. A lot of creative artists are already taking this approach with crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and Patreon.

Even now, it's probably true for most musicians that sales of copies isn't particularly lucrative compared to concerts/work for hire/project contracts, while recordings have an ever increasing number of pockets to line before the artists get their take. It's a potentially infinite revenue source, so why not?

Re: Neofeudalism and the Digital Manor

#228

Post by opportune »

ethbr0 wrote: post #221
opportune wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s take a step back here. Everybody has a different standard of privacy they want. There are different levels of trade offs they can make as they become more secure. What you’re describing is the top level of security but it’s not very convenient to use. It also uses private keys which makes establishing a new connection challenging. There are as I see it a few main security modes: stopping automated surveillance…

> Governments likely have access to back doors and 0days that can compromise anyone * anyone running a certain configuration Bugs don't exist in a vacuum. They exist in a specific piece of software, which usually supports a specific feature (e.g. Flash, Microsoft Word, or TCP/IP). Curious in more informed opinions, but it seems unlikely there's a large universe of zero days applicable to every configuration out there…

What I first replied to is about a specific private key algorithm that doesn’t have any patterns, and using it over something that can’t be backdoored. Using OTP is not just using crypto, it is pretty much the only “uncrackable” encryption if used properly.

My point is that using something like PGP to communicate over TOR (or even OTP over TOR) doesn’t matter if whoever you are trying to hide from has a backdoor to your OS or has the ability to exploit a vulnerability in your OS (which only requires something trivial like you having loaded some random JS in the past year). And there is no way to protect against an undocumented bug in some software you depend on other than to not use it. You can only hope that a government or criminal doesn’t care enough to burn a 0day on you.

(Of course you can still airgap a computer with the private PGP key and manually copy the encrypted data over but the question then is whether that is worth the minuscule chance of it mattering)

Re: Neofeudalism and the Digital Manor

#229

Post by breck »

adwn wrote: post #217
selfhoster11 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a great development which I welcome whole-heartedly, but I don't think this diminishes my broader argument. There are still many conditions besides COVID-19 that only have a therapy available but no cure because of business reasons.

> There are still many conditions besides COVID-19 that only have a therapy available but no cure because of business reasons. Name three, and give reasons to believe that there's no cure for business reasons . If you can't name at least three (of the "many conditions"), then how can you be so sure of this?

#1) Psychedelics/psilocybin for mental health. Cost basically $0 to produce but the US Mental Health industry was a $225B industry in 2019. Now though big pharma sees the writing on the wall, so is inventing patented variations (https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/12/09/9445723...) because otherwise these natural substances that people have been taking for thousands of years wouldn't be "safe".

#2) Oxycontin. We have far better cures for short-term pain management. A 1996 internal email from Sackler: "get an audience for our patent infringement suits so that we are feared as a tiger with claws, teeth and balls, and build some excitement with prescribers that OxyContin Tablets is [sic] the way to go.15" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5234149/)

#3) Unnecessary procedures (440k/deaths year from medical errors -https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5234149/)

Re: Neofeudalism and the Digital Manor

#230

Post by etripe »

nbzso wrote: post #219
f430 wrote: post #3

What really puzzles me about Apple fans and it's userbase is that they do not care . They simply do not care at all what's being done to them. It's the strongest example of consumer cultism. Absolute in their exceptionalism and ignorance. Similar problems discussed in the article are found in Tesla. The lowest common denominator of consumer cultism is surveillance and it's no surprise that both Apple and Tesla do exc…

>What really puzzles me about Apple fans and it's userbase is that they do not care. They simply do not care at all what's being done to them. I am Apple user and I care a lot for my self and my privacy. Thats why I will not support this company with my money. Some people are aware, but unfortunately we run a business in which Mac OS as software platform is superior. Little Snitch is installed in all my Apple compute…

> we run a business in which Mac OS as software platform is superior

Out of curiosity, what business is that? Music? Video editing?

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