Cory DoctorowMay 13, 2023

If you've followed my work for a long time, you've watched me transition from a "#linkblogger" who posts 5-15 short hits every day to an "essay-#blogger" who posts 5-7 long articles/week. I'm loving the new mode of working, but returning to linkblogging is also intensely, unexpectedly gratifying:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/02/wunderkammer/#jubillee

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If you'd like an essay-formatted version to read/share, here's a link to pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/13/four-bar-linkage/#linkspittle

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Pluralistic: Oops! All linkdump! (02 May 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Show threadCory DoctorowMay 13, 2023

My last foray into #linkblogging was so great - and my backlog of links is already so large - that I'm doing another one.

Link the first: "Siphon," @xkcd's delightful, whimsical "#physics-how-the-fuck-does-it-work" one-shot (visit the link, the tooltip is great):

https://xkcd.com/2775/

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Siphon

xkcd
Show threadCory DoctorowMay 13, 2023

Next is "#Hoogspanning," 50 Watts's collection of vintage Dutch safety posters, which exhibit that admirable Dutch frankness to a degree that borders on parody, but they're 100% real, and *amazing*:

https://50watts.com/Hoogspanning-More-Dutch-Safety-Posters

They're ganked from Geheugenvannederland ("Memory of the Netherlands"):

https://geheugenvannederland.nl/

While some are from the 1970s, others date to the 1920s and are likely PD. I've salted several away in my stock art folder for use in collages.

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Hoogspanning!: More Dutch Safety Posters - 50 Watts

Illustration and book art with a literary bent. Focus on international illustrated books and Surrealism.

Show threadCory Doctorow

All right, now that the fun stuff is out of the way, let's get down to some crunch tech-policy. To ease us in, I've got a game for you to play: "#ModeratorMayhem," the latest edu-game from @techdirt:

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/05/11/moderator-mayhem-a-mobile-game-to-see-how-well-you-can-handle-content-moderation/

Moderator Mayhem started life as a card-game that @mmasnick used to teach policy wonks about the real-world issues with content moderation.

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Moderator Mayhem: A Mobile Game To See How Well YOU Can Handle Content Moderation

Play Moderator Mayhem in your browser » Today, we’re excited to announce the launch of our newest game in partnership with Engine. Moderator Mayhem is a mobile, browser-based game that lets y…

Techdirt
May 13, 2023 at 8:05pmWeb
Show threadCory DoctorowMay 13, 2023

You play a mod who evaluates moderation flags from users while a timer ticks down. As you race to evaluate users' posts for policy compliance, you're continuously interrupted. Sometimes, it's "helpful" suggestions from the company's AI that wants you to look at the posts it flagged. Sometimes, it's your boss who wants you to do a trendy "visioning" exercise or warning you about a "sensitivity." Often, it's angry ref-working from users who want you to re-consider your calls.

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Show threadCory DoctorowMay 13, 2023

The card-game version is legendary but required a lot of organization to play, and the web version (which is better in a mobile browser, thanks to a swipe-left/right mechanic) is something you can pick up in seconds. This isn't merely highly recommended; I think that one could legitimately refuse to discuss content moderation policies and critiques with anyone who hasn't played it;

https://moderatormayhem.engine.is/

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Moderator Mayhem: A Content Moderation Game

Can you succeed at the fast-paced challenge of content moderation?

Show threadCory DoctorowMay 13, 2023

Or maybe that's too harsh. After all, #TechPolicy is a game that everyone can play - and more importantly, it's a game everyone *should* play. The contours of #TechRegulation and implementation touch rub up against nearly every aspect of our lives, and part of the reason it's such a mess is that the field has been gatekept to shit, turned into a three-way fight between #technologists, #PolicyWonks and #economists.

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Show threadCory DoctorowMay 13, 2023

Without other voices in the debate, we're doomed to end up with solutions that satisfy the rarified needs and views of those three groups, a situation that is likely to dissatisfy everyone else.

However. *However*. The problem is that our technology is nowhere near advanced enough to be indistinguishable from magic (RIP, Sir Arthur).

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Show threadCory DoctorowMay 13, 2023

There's plenty of things everyone wishes tech could do but it can't, and #WantingItBadlyIsntEnough. Merely shouting #NerdHarder at geeks won't actually get you what you want. And while I'm rattling off cliches: a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Which brings me to #AshtonKutcher. Yes, *that* Ashton Kutcher. No, *really*. Kutcher has taken up the admirable, essential cause of fighting #ChildSexAbuseMaterial (#CSAM, which is better known as #ChildPornography) online.

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Show threadCory DoctorowMay 13, 2023

This is a very, very important and noble cause, and it deserves all our support.

But there's a problem, which is that Kutcher's technical foundations are poor, and he has not improved them. Instead, he cites technologies that he has a demonstrably poor grasp upon to call for policies that turn out to be both ineffective at fighting exploitation *and* to inflict catastrophic collateral damage on vulnerable internet users.

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Show threadCory DoctorowMay 13, 2023

Take sex trafficking. Kutcher and his organization, #Thorn, were key to securing the passage of #SESTA/#FOSTA, a law that was supposed to fight online trafficking by making platforms jointly liable when they were used to facilitate trafficking:

https://www.engadget.com/2019-05-31-sex-lies-and-surveillance-fosta-privacy.html

At the time, Kutcher argued that deputizing platforms to understand and remove which user posts were part of a sex crime in progress would not inflict collateral damage.

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Engadget is part of the Yahoo family of brands

Show threadCory DoctorowMay 13, 2023

Somehow, if the platforms just nerded hard enough, they'd be able to remove sex trafficking posts without kicking off all consensual sex-workers.

Five years later, the verdict is in, and Kutcher was wrong. Sex workers have been deplatformed nearly everywhere, including from the places where workers traded "bad date" lists of abusive customers, which kept them safe from sexual violence, up to and including the risk of death.

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Show threadCory DoctorowMay 13, 2023

Street prostitution is way up, making the lives of sex workers *far* more dangerous, which has led to a resurgence of the odious institution of #pimping, a "trade" that was on its way to vanishing altogether thanks to the power of the internet to let sex workers organize among themselves for protection:

https://aidsunited.org/fosta-sesta-and-its-impact-on-sex-workers/

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FOSTA-SESTA and its impact on sex workers - AIDS United

The Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act and the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act have transformed the lives of sex workers across the United States since they were signed in 2018. Known as FOSTA-SESTA, these bills amend the Communications Decency Act of 1996 to significantly alter how Section 230 of the law applies to speech on […]

AIDS United
Show threadCory DoctorowMay 13, 2023

On top of all that, SESTA/FOSTA has made it *much* harder for cops to hunt down and bust actual sex-traffickers, by forcing an activity that could once be found with a search-engine into underground forums that can't be easily monitored:

https://www.techdirt.com/2018/07/09/more-police-admitting-that-fosta-sesta-has-made-it-much-more-difficult-to-catch-pimps-traffickers/

Wanting it badly isn't enough. Technology is not indistinguishable from magic.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

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More Police Admitting That FOSTA/SESTA Has Made It Much More Difficult To Catch Pimps And Traffickers

Prior to the passage of SESTA/FOSTA, we pointed out that — contrary to the claims of the bill’s suppporters — it would almost certainly make law enforcement’s job much more …

Techdirt
Show threadCory DoctorowMay 13, 2023

Kutcher, it seems, has learned nothing from SESTA/FOSTA. Now he's campaigning to ban working cryptography, in the name of ending the spread of CSAM. In March, Kutcher addressed the #EU over the "#ChatControl" proposal, which, broadly speaking, is a ban on #EndToEndEncrypted Messaging (#E2EE):

https://www.brusselstimes.com/417985/ashton-kutcher-spotted-in-the-european-parliament-promoting-childrens-rights

Now, banning E2EE would be a catastrophe.

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Ashton Kutcher spotted in the European Parliament promoting children's rights

A panel was held on Monday in Brussels for EU regulation regarding sexual abuse and exploitation of children.

Show threadCory DoctorowMay 13, 2023

Not only is E2EE necessary to protect us from griefers, stalkers, corporate snoops, mafiosi, etc, but E2EE is the only thing standing between the world's dictators and total surveillance of every digital communication. Even tiny flaws in E2EE can have grave human rights concerns. For example, a subtle bug in #Whatsapp was used by #NSOGroup to create a cyberweapon called #Pegasus that the #Saudi royals used to lure #JamalKhashoggi to his grisly murder:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/18/nso-spyware-used-to-target-family-of-jamal-khashoggi-leaked-data-shows-saudis-pegasus

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Saudis behind NSO spyware attack on Jamal Khashoggi’s family, leak suggests

Forensic analysis shows phones of those close to journalist were targeted before and after he was murdered

The Guardian
Show threadCory DoctorowMay 13, 2023

Because the collateral damage from an E2EE ban would be so far-ranging (beyond harms to sex workers, whose safety is routinely disregarded by policy-makers), people like Kutcher can't propose an outright ban on E2EE. Instead, they have to offer some explanation for how the privacy, safety and human rights benefits of E2EE can be respected even as encryption is broken to hunt for CSAM.

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Show threadCory DoctorowMay 13, 2023

Kutcher's answer is something called "#FullyHomomorphicEncryption" (#FHE) which is a theoretical - and enormously cool - way to allow for computing work to be done on encrypted data *without* decrypting it. When and if FHE are ready for primetime, it will be a revolution in our ability to securely collaborate with one another.

But FHE is nowhere *near* the state where it could do what Kutcher claims. It just isn't, and once again, wanting it badly is *not enough*.

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Show threadCory DoctorowMay 13, 2023

Writing on his blog, the eminent cryptographer @matthew_d_green delivers a master-class in what FHE is, what it could do, and what it can't do (yet):

https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2023/05/11/on-ashton-kutcher-and-secure-multi-party-computation/

As it happens, Green also gave testimony to the EU, but he doesn't confine his public advocacy work to august parliamentarians. Green wants all of us to understand cryptography ("*I think cryptography is amazing* and I want everyone talking about it all the time").

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On Ashton Kutcher and Secure Multi-Party Computation

Back in March I was fortunate to spend several days visiting Brussels, where I had a chance to attend a panel on “chat control”: the new content scanning regime being considered by the …

A Few Thoughts on Cryptographic Engineering
Show threadCory DoctorowMay 13, 2023

Rather than barking "stay in your lane" at the likes of Kutcher, Green has produced an outstanding, easily grasped explanation of FHE and the closely related concept of #MultiPartyCommunication (#MPC).

This is important work, and it exemplifies the difference between *simplifying* and *being simplistic*. Good science communicators do the former. Bad science communicators do the latter.

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Show threadCory DoctorowMay 13, 2023

While Kutcher is presumably being simplistic because he lacks the technical depth to understand what he doesn't understand, technically skilled people are perfectly capable of being simplistic, when it suits their economic, political or ideological goals.

One such person is #GeoffreyHinton, the so-called "father of AI," who resigned from Google last week, citing the existential risks of #RunawayAI becoming superintelligent and turning on its human inventors.

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Show threadCory DoctorowMay 13, 2023

Hinton joins a group of powerful, wealthy people who have made a lot of noise about the #ExistentialRisk of AI, while saying little or nothing about the ongoing risks of AI to people with disabilities, poor people, prisoners, workers, and other groups who are *already* being abused by automated decision-making and oversight systems.

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Show threadCory DoctorowMay 13, 2023

Hinton's nonsense is *superbly* stripped bare by @Mer__edith, the former Google worker organizer turned president of @signalapp, in a @fastcompany interview with #WilfredChan:

https://www.fastcompany.com/90892235/researcher-meredith-whittaker-says-ais-biggest-risk-isnt-consciousness-its-the-corporations-that-control-them

The whole thing is *incredible*, but there's a few sections I want to call to your attention here, quoting Whittaker verbatim, because she expresses herself *so* beautifully (sci-comms done right is a joy to behold):

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Show threadCory DoctorowMay 13, 2023

> I think it’s stunning that someone would say that the harms [from AI] that are happening now—which are felt most acutely by people who have been historically minoritized: Black people, women, disabled people, precarious workers, et cetera—that those harms aren’t existential.

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