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Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

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Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#301

Post by goldenchrome »

tehjoker wrote: post #300
ani-ani wrote: post #93

He is easily one of the least bullshit-y sources when it comes to handling of COVID. But then there's this right in the middle of the interview: " And when you have [posts] encrypted, there is no way to know what it is. I personally believe government should not allow those types of lies or fraud or child pornography [to be hidden with encryption like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger] ". Quite literally, encrypted comm…

He's a billionaire. The government defends his billions from being redistributed by angry dying people. He doesn't want potential revolutionaries to be able to communicate easily.

This is the right answer. HN likes to think of Bill Gates as a techophile because that’s where he started, but today he’s foremost a billionaire with more to lose than to gain.

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#302

Post by AmericanChopper »

TheOperator wrote: post #288
AmericanChopper wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if an engineering team is successful, then their manager is necessarily an engineering expert? You’re really not providing any rationale to support this rather extreme position. Bill Gates experience in the field of public health is choosing projects to finance, and even then he is not the primary person responsible for that in his foundation. Bill Gates has no credentials you could point to, and has done no work…

>He has done no work you could point to His work in eradicating Polio. Choosing which projects to finance is a skill in itself, something he's likely more capable of than a traditionally credentialed expert. I can't help but think that you have an arbitrarily narrow definition of expertise.

What public health expertise do you believe Bill Gates personally contributed to the The Global Polio Eradication Initiative? As far as I can tell, Bill Gates contributed $110 million USD to The Global Polio Eradication Initiative in funding, but personally contributed no polio eradication expertise at all to that project.

There is no basis at all for claiming he’s a public health expert. He might be an effective philanthropist, but that’s a completely different topic.

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#303

Post by kabacha »

thingymajig wrote: post #274
ani-ani wrote: post #93

He is easily one of the least bullshit-y sources when it comes to handling of COVID. But then there's this right in the middle of the interview: " And when you have [posts] encrypted, there is no way to know what it is. I personally believe government should not allow those types of lies or fraud or child pornography [to be hidden with encryption like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger] ". Quite literally, encrypted comm…

If you want to completely eradicate crime one way to do it would be to completely eradicate privacy. Would you sacrifice your privacy if it could eliminate child pornography? The theory is hard to say no to, but in practice that kind of power has never worked out. If we want to retain privacy we have to accept some amount of crime going unnoticed.

You somehow imply that it's impossible to get rid of crime without getting rid of privacy which is an absurd claim.

Finally if you take a look at pure math - most of worlds suffering, evil and death is inflicted by world's governments. You'd put your trust in that over individuals?

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#304

Post by flocial »

solarhoma wrote: post #215
tptacek wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's frustrating about this question is that it (inevitably!) commands the top of the HN thread with a discussion of the least interesting thing in the article. It's an article about COVID and Facebook, and here we're recapitulating the end-to-end encryption debate for the 8-zillionth time.

I would argue that this statement from Bill is the most interesting. This statement shows Bill Gates, someone who has influence on legislatures, making a statement against encryption.

COVID will eventually pass even with unnecessary fatalities in its wake. E2e encryption and loss of rights will stay around much longer.

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#305

Post by kabacha »

tehjoker wrote: post #300
ani-ani wrote: post #93

He is easily one of the least bullshit-y sources when it comes to handling of COVID. But then there's this right in the middle of the interview: " And when you have [posts] encrypted, there is no way to know what it is. I personally believe government should not allow those types of lies or fraud or child pornography [to be hidden with encryption like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger] ". Quite literally, encrypted comm…

He's a billionaire. The government defends his billions from being redistributed by angry dying people. He doesn't want potential revolutionaries to be able to communicate easily.

Isn't he very vocal about the fact that rich should be taxed heavily?

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#306

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

therealdrag0 wrote: post #268
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gates seems to hint that the way to reduce lie-sharing is by eliminating safe encryption (replacing safe encryption with unsafe encryption). This is an inherently dangerous stance (to everyone except repressive authoritarians).

Are you familiar with how much child pornography has ballooned from social media? I hadn’t until I listened to this podcast with NYT investigative journalist. Worth considering how serious the trade offs are https://samharris.org/podcasts/213-worst-epidemic/

>Are you familiar with how much child pornography has ballooned from social media?

What does that have to do with encryption?

Also, sidebar:

Illegal pornography is captured and then hidden in an invisible electronic state, using powerful machines called computers. It's then transported and distributed across vast distances using a network of these powerful machines called "The Internet".

Together they're responsible for a bazillion-fold increase of illegal porn. It's imperative that legislation be passed that sabotages the basic functions of computers and renders them ineffective at performing their primary task.

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#307

Post by kshacker »

panda88888 wrote: post #261
imagiko wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoa wait what..is it really E2E if they can analyse the content before putting it through their network?

Yes, they can analyze it in the app on user devices before it is encrypted and transmitted. The app on user decide need access to clear text in order to encrypt the message. Same on the receiving end. The app on user device can analyze the message once it is decrypted on user device.

Wow did I not read something similar last couple of days about on-device machine learning being better than in the cloud machine learning and how Apple got that right. That's where this may also be going then if we follow your train of thought.

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#308

Post by therealdrag0 »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #306
therealdrag0 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you familiar with how much child pornography has ballooned from social media? I hadn’t until I listened to this podcast with NYT investigative journalist. Worth considering how serious the trade offs are https://samharris.org/podcasts/213-worst-epidemic/

>Are you familiar with how much child pornography has ballooned from social media? What does that have to do with encryption? Also, sidebar: Illegal pornography is captured and then hidden in an invisible electronic state, using powerful machines called computers. It's then transported and distributed across vast distances using a network of these powerful machines called "The Internet". Together they're responsible…

> what does that have to do with

Well they are currently able to scan media and maintain a fingerprint database of illegal content. If it’s encrypted this is not possible right? That’s a serious trade off.

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#309

Post by therealdrag0 »

throwawaythekey wrote: post #287
therealdrag0 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you familiar with how much child pornography has ballooned from social media? I hadn’t until I listened to this podcast with NYT investigative journalist. Worth considering how serious the trade offs are https://samharris.org/podcasts/213-worst-epidemic/

I normally enjoy Sam but found that episode was voiced more by his inner parent than his usual hyper-rational self. Child porn is a scourge that should be destroyed but there was minimal discussion of the following that I would normally expect from Sam: - Relative merits of the alternatives to the banning/reduction of e2e encryption, e.g stronger police resources, education and community programs - Is there a strong…

Curious what does “reducing of e2e” refer to? What does reduction without elimination look like?

Re: Interview with Bill Gates on Covid, social media

#310

Post by api »

flocial wrote: post #304
solarhoma wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that this statement from Bill is the most interesting. This statement shows Bill Gates, someone who has influence on legislatures, making a statement against encryption.

COVID will eventually pass even with unnecessary fatalities in its wake. E2e encryption and loss of rights will stay around much longer.

What does encryption even have to do with COVID? All the disinformation I see is cleartext on social media.
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