Alphane Moon @ Alphane_Moon @lemmy.world

That there is no perfect defense. There is no protection. Being alive means

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1 yr. ago

Here is a Pentium 1 60 MHz you lazy commoner. Be happy that I am willing to show such charity!

If you give the government a new power, they will abuse it, it’s just a matter of time. ... because the government perpetually expands the scope of whatever powers we grant it.

I don't believe in treating the government as a black box. If what you're saying is true, then that's a reflection of society. You want a government that has the capability to implement surveillance and ban social networks when the situation calls for it. In the global context, there will be such situations. And you need to have a political and social system that limits such powers when they are not needed anymore.

A specific individual or a group of individuals cannot independently collaborate to implement counter intelligence policies to identify traitors who are providing location data for missile strikes and helping kill your fellow citizens who are fighting for your safety on the front-lines. The government must have deep surveillance capabilities in such a situation.

It's the personal responsibility of every citizen to contribute to a functioning government system. If it doesn't function well, that's on the individuals that make up society. Blanket bans on government surveillance or control external social media is not a viable approach in our world (not just in Ukraine).

In the US context (I've lived there, but I am of course more knowledgeable on Eastern Europe), I would argue that continued renewal of the Patriot act (if it even was needed initially, but one can argue after 9/11 there was a period of shock and fear for Americans) is a reflection of the failures of the US political system. Specifically the lack of competitive elections beyond two parties. This is on some level the responsibility of US citizens and not a "black box" model of government.

I understand the need for certain policy changes during wartime. When Russia started its aggressions (arguably, long before Crimea), I can understand a temporary ban on Russian propaganda, because it’s an active war. Maybe it doesn’t include fighting yet, but it does have a credible threat of devolving into that. So I support temporary restrictions while an imminent, credible threat exists or the country is currently at war.

It's not that simple though. One could frame pre-invasion (i.e. pre Feb 2014 when they invaded Crimea) restrictions on russian social media and services as government overreach. On the other hand, one could frame it as a forward looking government initiative attempting to protect the lives of its citizens. We currently have the benefit of hindsight, so it's easy to see which approach is correct, but that's not the case in the moment.

As I mentioned in my OP, I don't know much about Albanian politics. What I do know is that you don't need an imminent threat of a physical invasion to limit the influence of much larger countries on your political environment. I do not support having local politics being subject to unaccountable (see Facebook and Rohingya genocide), callous operators; doesn't matter if they are based in the US or China.

I am not that knowledge on China, but I do know how russia operates. Similar to what you mentioned, I think TikTok operates much closer to the VK/Odnoklassniki models used by the russians. You don't want the CCP promoting political movements that they have bribed or see as being more beneficial to their interests. You want politics and political messaging to be accountable to the people who live in your country. I will point out that pre-invasion (2014), the russians very much used soft power from their internet services/social media/TV channels to influence politics within Ukraine. That's unacceptable and has lead to large scale deaths, destruction and misery.

Perhaps dealing with an invasion for a decade plus made me a bit paranoid, but I do support the government being able to regulate the ability of foreign social media/services to influence local politics and spread misinformation and propaganda.

As I mentioned earlier, it's not all black and white. There are legitimate cases (even without an imminent invasion) where you need to have a measure of control over foreign influence, be it American-style Zuckerburg enabling genocide in Mynmar or Chinese influence campaigns. I don't see this as being supportive of a Chinese-style total censorship model.

This might be nonsense to you, but it's possible that I have much more experience with what we are discussing than you do and my perspective actually has some nuance (which admittedly I never clarified in my OP).

See the following reply in this thread:

https://lemmy.world/post/27885728/16300020

I would argue your approach is narrow both in terms of pragmatic realities and broad social changes in the information age.

I mentioned earlier in this thread how I am from Ukraine and how I of course support our government banning russian social media and internet services in 2014. It's good to talk about "government not forcing people to be better of" and so on, but when your family is forced to leave their city and sell their homes at 10% of market value due to an invasion from a large, aggressive and genocidal neighbour (that uses langauge as a key element of their imperialist policies), you start taking a more sober look at such matters. Mind you, I am talking about Donbas in 2014, not the full scale invasion in 22.

Not saying you're American, but I would often hear similar polemics when I lived in the US; didn't find them in the least convincing. It was clear that supporters of such polemics never really encountered any difficult situations that would test their commitment (and understanding) of their claimed beliefs. Some life experience outside of Ukraine (i.e. unrelated to invasions) also contributed to this perspective. Unfortunately, it's not a black and white type topic as far as I am concerned.

The above mentioned points refer to real world examples. I would argue there are also more abstract arguments for my point of view.

We are currently going through massive social change due to the development of information and communication technology. We don't yet know what the best practices are with respect to managing the externalities of the modern ICT landscape.

In 1890, much of the world was still ruled by kings and emperors. In many cases they were positioned literally as god's messengers to humanity. In retrospect, it was clear that the imperial/colonialist model was not going to survive contact with modernity (industrialization, commoners learning to read, rise of easily accessible political messaging) and that new models had to take their place.

One could argue that the same is true of current attitudes towards information technology. It's possible that the drivers that led to rapid ICT growth (e.g. US service providers not being responsible for the content on their platforms) also resulted in certain social externalities that at the end of the day will need to be accounted for (one example would be FB's callousness and contribution to the Rohingya genocide).

I am not arguing for Chinese-style total control of the internet, but perhaps the optimal approach lies somewhere in the middle between US-style "no responsibility for anything" approach and excessive Chinese governmental paternalism.

Just some thoughts, I know I come off as condescending, but it is honestly not my intention.

Notification/warning that an executable was downloaded from the internet.

I am surprised I've never heard of this book. Will need to check it out.

That's fair.

I was just trying to point that American attitudes (theatrical polemics claiming some sort allegiance to free speech) around social networks are not always applicable or desirable.

In my own country, Ukraine, we banned all Russian social networks and internet services in 2014 after they invaded. This is a reasonable action.

Depends how you look at it. If enemy states are actively leveraging their social networks to undermine democracy in your country, 2 months before the election may be the perfect time to ban US/Chinese commercial social networks.

Can't speak for Albanian internal politics (I will speculate the incumbent administration is almost certainly likely to use to their own benefit), but more countries need to start banning large commercial American and Chinese social networks.

I like the interface of WinRAR more (just a matter of habit).

I even have a license for WinRAR that I bought 15 years ago.

I once got a really nasty cryptominer that shut down all attempt to remove it via a fully patched WinRar opening an archive with what seemed to mostly JPEGs (maybe some PDFs as well). Perhaps this vulnerablility the root enabler of the cryptominer.

Thanks for sharing!

Upvote, comment, post! Compliment good OC content (especially if it is posted regularly).

Bring more regular users if you can.

www.theregister.com

They cover mainstream topics, but they have a lot of in-depth enterprise tech news and they have their own voice and humour.

www.linuxgizmos.com www.cnx-software.com

Both these sites covers SBCs (not only Raspberry Pi), microcontrollers and random DIY stuff

www.osnews.com

Some mainstream coverage, but also a lot of random news about open source, niche and historical operating systems and computers

www.hackaday.com

DIY hardware news and projects

www.restofworld.org

Lots of tech news on non-western countries, mainstream topics are covered as well, but often with a different perspective.

www.semiengineering.com www.chipsandcheese.com

Very specialized sources on semiconductor developments. Very in-depth, many of the articles are difficult to understand even if you have solid (armchair) knowledge of semiconductors.

Self-promotion: I am a mod at !hardware@lemmy.world, while coverage includes a lot of mainstream tech hardware topics, there is content on more nitty gritty semiconductor topics (a lot of business type news though), battery tech and unique hardware devices (some retro coverage too). The sidebar includes more specialized tech communities on Lemmy that might be of interest to you.

I stand corrected.

I think LW agreed to remove their listing because they are already very big.

This is a purely theoretical arguement.

Ecosystem momentum makes this argument mute.

What the fuck is this shit?

I wouldn't go as far as saying it's very easy to manipulate American oligarchs. However, they are relatively provincial and lack the capabilities to deal with truly complex challenges.

They operate in an environment with no real risk. They've never dealt with any real challenges. The US judicial system is a joke (even in China, Alibaba's Jack Ma immediately regretted going on a public chimp out). US society is either openly supportive of corruption and criminality or lacks the capability (true desire and risk tolerance) to address corruption.

This is not to underestimate American oligarchs. They are extremely sophisticated and absolutely committed to their "number go up" fetish, but you also have to be real about what they are.

Let's just hope they move fast and aren't afraid to break things.