Edit: also, read what the EFF has to say: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/05/sunsetting-section-230-will-hurt-internet-users-not-big-tech They’re saying that legal liability would result in less moderation, which is counter-intuitive. While I agree, I still think that site operators will likely reach for the ban-hammer before relying on lawyers, especially if they don’t have deep pockets.

FAck. They were floating this during Trump’s first term too. I’m thankful it didn’t get far from Barr’s desk, but I knew it was always going to be in the crosshairs going forward.

I think the impact of this would be way bigger than people realize. Basically, it would kill if not cripple the Fediverse.

The problem is that without Section 230, site admins would need to aggressively censor and remove material that would get anyone in hot water. Anyone can come along and basically torpedo whatever forum site they want. The answer to that starts to look an awful lot like lots of AI, lots of paid site moderators, and eliminating anonymity to deter that kind of behavior. So, all this photo-id-age-validation going on out there? IMO, that’s companies aligning themselves to cover their collective asses before this goes through. If a site operator is on the hook for finding stuff like CSAM, cooperating with the government by handing over the real identity of the perpetrator would go a long way to get them off your back.

Also, all of those things are very hard to do for small site operators. It all costs real money to accomplish at even a modest scale. While the loss of Section 230 would be a huge step towards furthering mass online surveillance, it also “pulls the ladder up”, further entrenching large social media services and forums.

Besides, it’s a really bad form of ID. The numbers aren’t even unique, and up until 2011, a few digits are reserved for geographical information.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_number#Structure

If I had to reach for a hasty solution, it would be to use the IRS taxpayer ID instead. Of course, that might weaken the SSA’s importance overall, so that wouldn’t be without consequences: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individual_Taxpayer_Identification_Number

The content inside the notepad edit window should probably be universally sandboxed from your local box

Sadly, this was already the case when Notepad stayed in its lane and only handled plain text unicode.

I won’t dox myself, but the handful of places I recognize are very non-white areas. Is that what everyone else is seeing?

I used to hang with a lot of hard-partying night-owls. Combining poor sleep, cigarettes, and alcohol can age a person pretty damn fast. If you add hard drugs to the mix, or even some legitimate prescriptions, it happens faster.

That’s the neat part. This device is designed such that “out comes the lead.”

Does Hegseth know that the scouts aren’t part of the military

Eagle Scouts get advanced rank after basic/boot. That translates into pay. Kicking girls out of the BSA is basically denying them a valuable head-start.

Fun Fact: Did you know that being an Eagle Scout is recognized by the United States Military? Upon graduation from Basic Training in the USAF, USMC, US Army, or US Navy, an Eagle Scout is advanced to E-2. Be sure to tell your recruiter that you are an Eagle Scout!

https://www.hoac-bsa.org/blue-elk/eagle-scout

https://www.29palms.marines.mil/Articles/Article/499378/eagle-scouts-a-road-to-military-service/

Three times++, actually. The second attack was documented to have resumed after the third, with different payload URLs.

https://securelist.com/notepad-supply-chain-attack/118708/

As someone who is inside the IT industry, and has been for a while, I have some insight here. Yes, it’s stupidity alright, but a weird focused kind of stupidity like having a blind-spot. Money and ethics, IMO, are the only divisions that explain it.

We like to think of tech as being this rebellious, counter-cultural place. And that tracks when you start talking about “information wants to be free” and “the internet circumvents censorship”, but also “market disruption” and “move fast and break things.” But there’s this problem where that rebellion is actually multiple groups moving in a similar direction. If you look at the decisions people make, there’s a clear tradeoff of ethics in line with freedom and liberty, for cold, hard cash. The people we’re talking about went for the money. It took me a long time to reconcile this, and I’m now comfortable concluding that the rebellious spirit here is less “damn the man” and more “fuck you, got mine.” Nevermind that it’s not sustainable and always ends in a death-spiral of everything they built.

To put it another way, technohippies and conservatives agree about the broad strokes of personal liberty and rebelliousness right up until things like empathy all others get involved. Once you surrender those kinds of ethics, or figure out that having few/none is seen as an asset, bigger paychecks are on offer; its too good to pass up for some folks. It should come as no surprise that aligning one’s self with authoritarianism and even fascism is a small step from there.

And my personal experience - take with salt - there’s also a lot of people in security that are just VERY pessimistic, if not outright fearful, of their fellow man. A lot of them vote to the right, despite depending on an industry mostly fueled by left-thinking labor. They’re highly skilled, competent, and intelligent people in every other way. Once again, I think the fat paycheck smooths a lot of this over.

Yeah, that move was far more conventional though. “Big industry fat-cat buys major newspaper” is right out of the 19th century cartoon villain playbook, which seems to be Elon’s whole bag.

I’m becoming increasingly of the opinion that some groups of people care more about the packaging than the message.

As long as a person says the right kinds of things, is of the right pedigree, or has the right support and/or accolades, they can get away with damn near anything.

Yup. It’s hard to look at this and not imagine de-platforming the left sphere as deliberate.

Oh, the moment that fucking congress was involved, I knew they were all upset that millions of people were using a communication platform that they had zero eyeballs on. Worse yet, the only party that did was a foreign superpower. All of that is very bad news for entrenched politics, with people able to collectively invent a different mindset and/or get swayed by outside interests. The only way to fix this was ban it or own it somehow: the very two options floated at the time.

Meanwhile we narrowly avoided a precedent for a great firewall of our own.

Ugh. This DINO is talking out of both sides of his mouth. Let me explain.

So, Democratic voters have some spine when it comes to the integrity of their representatives. There, an apology is the bare minimum one can do to acknowledge a bad decision or take on something. In past years, that might have actually worked, but I think things are changing.

Meanwhile the Republicans have demonstrated that acting in accordance with party values - hierarchy, racism, brute force - is all that matters. Say whatever you want and lie your pants off since “the Democrats are probably cheating just as bad, and we’re the chosen people to lead anyway.” Being this duplicitous is a-okay on team R.

So what we have is someone that is trying to keep his seat cozy, both through lip-service to the left and voting like a right-winger at the same time.

Yup. Wet-bulb conditions are no joke and can kill, making functioning A/C a life-saving technology if not an outright requirement for survival.

Make no mistake. The Arab Spring also taught governments around the world that “shut off the internet” is a crucial element in crushing mass dissent.

It’s also worth mentioning that the bandwidth requirements of actual, honest, information and news, are appallingly low. The level of slop and waste in our current social media landscape is in no way representative of what it takes to communicate effectively.

100 years ago we used to get the word out to broadcasters at 100 baud over teletype.

So, imagine a network that uses less than 1% of the bandwidth we currently use. It’s a pocket-sized situation that almost disappears into the noise of everything else, yet is free, accessible, and effective. Radio and mesh networks are absolutely up to the task, even if they have to be covert and/or mobile.

We also have bluetooth meshes for the masses now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitchat

Where it gets really crazy is where you have a few pairs that you rotate through for “daily wear”. A whole decade can slip by before you go “how long have I had these?”

I don’t care a whole lot about fashion so “until they stop working correctly” is about the best answer I can give.

Make no mistake, the oligarchs see the personal computer as a 40-year-old experiment that has failed, or needs to fail. They want their mainframes and CPU/hr billing back. Server hosting for enterprise uses has already gone this way for the most part. Small consumers are next.