Open Thread WE 28 JUL 21
The greatest danger to national security has become the companies that claim to protect it.
Edward Snowden
Good day all and welcome to the Wednesday Open Thread. Today I bring an interesting topic to the table which potentially effects all tech users. My eyes were recently opened by reading a near-future science fiction novel "attack surface" by Cory Doctorow written last year. It eerily describes a future tech nightmare which mirrors the current state of affairs revealed by Forbidden Stories. (See Amnesty International link below).
This issue has been on my mind since the so called Patriot Act was pushed thru. Civil liberties have become secondary to national insecurity. The military and spook machines keep taking more if the pie, while social needs and infrastructure are failing. Seems the ptb are afraid of 'wrong' or independent ideas floating about. Therefore the screws are being tightened. Our voices silenced.
What to do? Staying informed helps. Screening contradicting stories thru the sieve of reason too.
In this emergent model, social control and security mechanisms and interventions at all levels are geared not towards policing but to risk and opportunity management through surveillance, exchange of information, auditing, communication, classification, and filtering. Of pressing philosophical and political concern is the potential affects on freedom, in particular from dividualization (the limiting of opportunities through fragmentation) and its corollary contrapose, the autonomy trap (the limiting of opportunities through finely-tuned personalization).
http://surveillance-society.info/
Kim Taipale The Surveillance Society
follow-ups with a similar theme ..
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/07/the-pegasus-project/
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/27/spying-pegasus-pro...
https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/ns-oh-god-how-is-this-legal
https://www.rutherford.org/files_images/general/Surveillance-State-2009.pdf
https://www.upcounsel.com/video-surveillance-laws-by-state
https://understandingempire.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/what-does-a-surveil...
Use this thread to share your simmering rants and speculative theories. Or, say, how does your garden grow? Cheers!
Comments
On this date in history
1821 Peru declares independence
The Peruvian War of Independence against Spain began in 1811 and ended with a declaration of independence under the leadership of José de San Martín.
1932 The Bonus Army was evicted from DC
President Herbert Hoover ordered the U.S. Army to clear the marchers' campsite. Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur commanded a contingent of infantry and cavalry, supported by six tanks. The Bonus Army marchers with their wives and children were driven out, and their shelters and belongings burned.
question everything
Hi QMS
what a contrst between Peru's fight for freedom and our centuries long battle against freedom. Of course they call it "freedumb" but it means something else entirely.
NYCVG
Good Morning...
...just in from pulling Sisyphus way back up hill. We got 2.6" in less than an hour on Sunday, and another inch in about 30 min on Monday. I got started yesterday and finished up pulling the road back together this morning. Always something...
As to our surveilled world, Snowden and recently married Bill Binney revealed the massive collection by the NSA. To me, corporate data collection is just as (or perhaps more) threatening. Targeting us all as products for more profit. 10 min clip...
Hope all is well in your world. There's more mowing in my future today. Have a good one!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Whoa, that's some heavy stuff
besides the rains, meaning the video. Put's it all out there. The central issue of our times agreed.
Good luck with the mowing adventure. I'm doing a pressure washer dance today with the utility trailer. Hasn't been moved in over a year. Needs a go-over, like the courts, legislature and executive do.
Get into the 21st century with real democratic solutions.
Thanks for posting!
question everything
I need to totally revamp my old boat trailer
...from new tires to hubs to blasting and repainting. Like I said always something.
Hope your dance is a blast!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
So now tell me why the techies are so smart
On my labtop I have a pin, on my PC I have something just to log in, which is not a pin. On my laptop I have something called malwarebytes- That sucker makes me very 'mal', indeed. I tell them surveillants all the time, how I agree with them, how I am so happy to be of service, I tell them only the truth and nothing but the truth, i never lie. I offer the intimate details my life.
I would think they would get it by now, but heh, I can do whatever I want, and they still can not stop laying their eyes on me. POOR THEM, I AM NOT PRETTY. Even the Russian under my bed, Putin, got it after a while and disappeared. Oh, I miss my Putinchen.
Anyhow, I am the smart one and them are the dummies. Some critter has crawled into my brain. and no doctor is willing to prescribe me Ivermectin.
Tell me one more word about smart people and I hand-cuff you together with Bezos.
Well I tried to pull off old common ivy from my sisters brick house. Now it looks ugly and dirty and I got scolded for making such a mess. Then I pulled off a temper tantrum and stopped to talk to every one.
So, I remain shut upped.
I hate two plants, bamboo and common ivy. How about you? what is the most hated plant you have to deal with in your garden?
Ve well and thanks for the OT.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Maybe I'm not in the smart column
I like the bamboo which crept across from my neighbor. Use it to stake up the tomatoes, etc. And the ivy both the deer and I like, as it grows where nothing else will. Sometimes I have to rescue the trees from it, but it burns well.
As far as the usernames and passwords go, I am not a big fan of that 'security' feature. It has become more of a hassle than it is worth. *You must update your password with at least 37 random numbers, letters, caps and symbols* The crooks get past it anyway. The trade-off between loss of performance and "anti-virus" software hogging available memory is a sham as well.
Continuously patching "updates" with more malware is a losing battle sfaic (as far as I'm concerned).
respectfully signed,
an analogue robot coping with a digital world
question everything
sorry I can't get all the images I have from our garden
uploaded. The smart column doesn't want me to enter.
I could explain, but 'have no bock'.
I will try tomorrow again.
Have a good one and forgive my comments.
https://www.euronews.com/live
That's OK Mimi
Your verbal descriptions are plenty to imagine your garden as being a wonder.
danke
question everything
Here's something to ponder
Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.
Good point
It is also telling of our culture that movie stars, athletes and other performers are both vaunted and paid the big bucks to distract us from issues like poverty and war.
Enchanting entertainment is better ignored for a healthy mind.
question everything
Slave labor is used in making US military uniforms
...and helmets — inside the US. After they protest that — then they have some high ground to stand on.
On the other hand, I missed the Nike gotcha. Where are those slaves located?
Carry a burning candle and share the light.
.
Good rapidly fading morning QMS.
Government spying and surveillance
Corporate spying and surveillance
All same-same, the corporations serve and feed the government, which, in turn serves and feeds them, they are symbiotes. We, in turn, are expendable resources, fodder and grist for the mill. Dystopia does not live in the future or in fiction, it is only a question of degree; This Is Dystopia, this herenow thing. It is simply not as bad as it could be, like the first tiny inkling of the flu, or that quick initial pain when you mash your thumb, before the incessant overpowering throbbing sets in.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Not as bad as it could be
Ha. That's a good one.
question everything