Apple is destroying the Mac by trying to make it safer (Macworld/Jason Snell) https://sixcolors.com/offsite/2023/10/apple-is-destroying-the-mac-by-trying-to-make-it-safer/

By making software publishers report to governments when a security vulnerability is exploited and before fixes are made, the proposed EU #CyberResilience Act places the public in greater danger:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/eff-and-other-experts-join-pointing-out-pitfalls-proposed-eu-cyber-resilience-act
#EU #cybersecurity

Chrome: We're automatically opting you in to a new feature that sends your home address to advertisers but puts little asterisks over parts of it, and we're calling it Ultimate Privacy Protection

Firefox: We're encrypting every step of the DNS and HTTP connection process so nobody on the planet can know what you're doing online, because fuck anyone who would want to know

These two are not the same and should not be regarded as equals

Happy Stanislav Petrov Day everyone, it’s the fortieth anniversary of Lt Colonel Petrov declining to start a nuclear war just because the policies and procedures said to do so.

You need to stop using Chrome NOW. It’s not hyperbole: Google just rolled out a change to Chrome that tracks the sites you visit, builds a profile, and shares that with any page you visit that asks.

This is real. It’s not tech bro conspiracy shit.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/09/googles-widely-opposed-ad-platform-the-privacy-sandbox-launches-in-chrome

#privacy #google #chrome

Co-workers are not your family. You may like them, become good friends with them, hang out with them, help them move in exchange for pizza, but calling them your family is a way companies manipulate you into doing unrealistic things, things you would and should only do for real family.

As everyone rushes to invest in AI, moving away from crypto, my new favourite term has emerged: grift shift.

Zoomers & boomers: «IDGAF. It doesn’t affect me; everyone already has all my data—»

Me: No. No, they do not.

You *generate* data every time you touch that service, visit that site, patronise that business. Your data isn’t just your PII, and it isn’t finite. You are a living, breathing fountain of data that can be and is used in ways that harm the vulnerable and marginalised, even if it’s never used to harm *you*

It’s not zero-sum. Limiting use & reducing dependence still counts as a good

This is a good example of what AI systems like ChatGPT excel at—giving managers and administrators the ability to automate top-down, controversial and harmful decision-making while shielding themselves from accountability. They're a sort of authoritarianism accelerator

https://www.popsci.com/technology/iowa-chatgpt-book-ban/

cannot believe that we taught rocks to whisper Secret Numbers so vast that their names have never before and will never be spoken again in the long span of human time, and we use them to key databases for e-commerce systems

Cory Doctorow: "Mastodon is far from perfect. But I only have so many hours in the day, and only so many days left in my life. I would much rather spend those precious hours making a open service better than using a temporarily superior closed one. I have seen that movie. I know how it ends"
https://doctorow.medium.com/fool-me-twice-we-dont-get-fooled-again-20074e311f1f

Solarpunk by default because it is the one currently available mode of human thought that allows for being pro-technology while being anti-capitalist

I hate it

Microsoft kinda nailed it with this one

This is the best explanation I've found of how terrible the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is. It's probably worse than you thought, even in its amended form. Please call your reps now!

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/kids-online-safety-act-still-huge-danger-our-rights-online

#Mozilla has published its position on the "Web Environment Integrity API" proposal put forward by the #Google #Chrome team.

First paragraph: "Mozilla opposes this proposal because it contradicts our principles and vision for the Web."

https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/852#issuecomment-1648820747

Google’s “Web Integrity API” sounds like DRM for the web

It's just a "proposal," but it's also being prototyped inside Chrome right now.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/07/googles-web-integrity-api-sounds-like-drm-for-the-web/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

To understand Musk's renewed obsession with X and focus on financial services, you REALLY need to understand the X/Confinity merger that became PayPal.

And, particularly, the Peter Thiel-led coup that kicked Musk out as CEO/Chief Strategist.

Here's how that happened. 1/🧵 #history #technology

Eugen I need more characters

Holy _shit_ this paper, and the insight behind it.

You know how every receiver is also a transmitter, _well_: every text predictor is also text compressor, and vice-versa.

You can outperform massive neural networks running millions of parameters, with a novel applications of _gzip_.

https://aclanthology.org/2023.findings-acl.426/