Gregory's Server
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31 posts total
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@pluralistic i just finished reading this substack and am speaking happy to see Ed circulating. I'm a huge fan of both writers, Cory and Ed @pluralistic capitalism rewards those who own the right thing at the right time, whether due to luck, or knowledge. Generally it would be luck, because somebody has to own it but nobody can see the future. Learning that today's massive Mastodon spam attack was carried out by conspiracy-addled Japanese middle-schoolers whose previous spam run was shut down when admins got in touch with their parents who confiscated their devices is definitely straight of the Shitty Timeline Little Brother. One of the most brazen lies of Big Tech is that people *like* commercial surveillance, a fact you can verify for yourself by simply observing how many people end up using products that spy on them. If they didn't like spying, they wouldn't opt into being spied on. -- If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/08/water-thats-not-wet/#pixelated 1/ State-affiliated Chinese hackers penetrated AT&T, Verizon, Lumen and others; they entered their networks and spent months intercepting US traffic - from individuals, firms, government officials, etc - and they did it all without having to exploit any code vulnerabilities. Instead, they used the back door that the FBI requires every carrier to furnish: 1/
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@pluralistic@mamot.fr now the chinese know how i texted my mom that i had the biggest fart in my life the other day My latest @Locusmag column is "Unpersoned." It's about the implications of putting critical infrastructure into the private, unaccountable hands of tech giants: https://locusmag.com/2024/07/cory-doctorow-unpersoned/ If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/22/degoogled/#kafka-as-a-service
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 ⬆️ 🤬 Le cauchemard: “This week, I lost an argument with my accountants about this. They provide me with my tax forms as links to a Microsoft Cloud file, and I need to have a Microsoft login in order to retrieve these files. This policy - and a prohibition on sending customer files as email attachments - came from their IT team, and it was in response to a requirement imposed by their insurer. ” Je suis bien content de quitter mon emploi (prof au CEGEP) alors qu'ils s'enfoncent dans le nuage M$  The horror stories make me want to go full out Linux Puritan. But then connecting with family and friends and coworkers pulls me back in. Insert godfather gif here. We need more representative representation and the only way to get that is to politically participate harder. Today's threads (a thread) Inside: You were promised a jetpack by liars; and more! Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/17/fake-it-until-you-dont-make-it/ 1/ TONIGHT (May 17), I'm in San Francisco at the @internetarchive to keynote the tenth anniversary of the @AuthorsAlliance: 2/
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@pluralistic Brings home to me that Bruce Sterling isn't one to post pictures of himself - based on how he looks compared to my pre-existing mental image of him, the last picture I saw of him was probably taken some time in the 90s.  It is so good to see you having a moment like this considering how many moments like this you have given others… keep up the fight, we’re all in this together now! Today's threads (a thread) Inside: Google is (still) losing the spam wars to zombie news-brands; and more! Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/03/keyword-swarming/ 1/ I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel *The Bezzle*! Catch me TONIGHT (May 3) in CALGARY and TOMORROW (May 4) in VANCOUVER. Next is Tartu, Estonia, and beyond! https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/16/narrative-capitalism/#bezzle-tour 2/
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 @pluralistic I wish I had seen this post before. I would've spent the day walking around to find it (I live in Turin -- not our proudest moment). Your periodic reminder that if you: a) Dislike long threads and; b) Follow someone who routinely posts long threads; that is a YOU problem, which you can solve by unfollowing, and, if need be, blocking that user so they don't show up in your federated timeline.
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 @pluralistic following you and complaining about long threads is just silly. That being said, I don't do threads, unless each toot works individually (or the stuff I add is an afterthought). Otherwise, whenever I feel like writing longer stuff, I write it on the friendica account I opened just for that and then boost it here. I find it much neater that way.  @pluralistic ... or switch to software which displays threads as, well, threads and not many separate individual posts.
Here's a fun AI story: a security researcher noticed that large companies' AI-authored source-code repeatedly referenced a nonexistent library (an AI "hallucination"), so he created a (defanged) malicious library with that name and uploaded it, and thousands of developers automatically downloaded and incorporated it as they compiled the code: https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/28/ai_bots_hallucinate_software_packages/ 1/
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 @pluralistic wow. one or two disasters where it isn't benign and people might start paying attention.  @pluralistic Should have done a Rickroll after a certain time delay or conditions were met.  @pluralistic
> Lanyado also said that there was a Hugging Face-owned project that incorporated the fake huggingface-cli, but that was removed after he alerted the biz. Wonderful… Vice died the way it lived: being suckered in by smarter predators, even as it trained its own predatory instincts on those more credulous than its own supremely gullible leadership. RIP, we hardly knew ye. -- If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: 1/
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 @pluralistic I'll always be mad at Vice for outing Naomi Wu which caused the Chinese government to force her off all social media. @pluralistic I am actually suprised that Vice lasted that long. Take the #AppStore. Apple blocks third parties from offering rival app stores for its #iOS platform, which means you can only install apps that have been blessed by Apple. That blessing is contingent on the software authors involved giving $0.30 out of every dollar you spend in their apps to Apple. 2/  @pluralistic a lot more needs to be said about the 2-3 decades that tech used PR to really horrific ends, and the journalists and interested tech employees who help them out  @pluralistic This is basically the exact opposite of a proposal I saw a few years ago to switch to an 8 day week, with one of the key benefits being that Christmas would always be at the weekend so we wouldn't need to have time off work for it
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 @pluralistic When I first saw this message, I truly thought you were just taking the (Mickey Bliss) (pun intended. Sorry.)  @pluralistic @hacks4pancakes That cover photo is a good remake of Serrano’s Piss Christ. Maybe call it “Piss Prime”? [ Edited to replace incorrect attribution to Mapplethorpe. Thanks to all who pointed out my error! ] Today's threads (a thread) Inside: Open Circuits; and more! Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/14/hidden-worlds/ 1/ I'm kickstarting the audiobook for "The Internet Con: How To #SeizeTheMeansOfComputation," a #BigTech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and bring back the old, good internet. It's a #DRMFree book, which means #Audible won't carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook: http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org 2/ #Enshittification is the process by which digital platforms devour themselves: first they dangle goodies in front of end users. Once users are locked in, the goodies are taken away and dangled before business customers who supply goods to the users. Once those business customers are stuck on the platform, the goodies are clawed away and showered on the platform's shareholders: https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys 1/ If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men 2/ In "Behavioral Advertising and Consumer Welfare," business researchers from #CarnegieMellon and #PamplinCollege investigate goods purchased through highly targeted online ads and just plain web-searches, and conclude social media ads push overpriced junk: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4398428 1/ If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/08/late-stage-sea-monkeys/#jeremys-razors 2/ 12
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Back in the imperial core, we all got to play the home edition of the "no price is too high" War on Terror game. New, extremely invasive airport security measures were instituted. A "no-fly" list as thick as a phone book, assembled in secret, without any due process or right of appeal, was produced and distributed to airlines.
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@pluralistic Great article. Reality is often weirder than fiction!