Mastodawn

Em

@Em0nM4stodon@infosec.exchange

14.4K Followers

1.8K Following

8.7K Posts

Privacy Advocate. Security Passionate. Protector of Data. Tamer of Python. Lover of Encrypted Keys. Recycled Artist. Hardware Enthusiast. Fan of FOSS. Happy Mastodon Mentor to all newcomers!

Spending most days writing, reading, and talking about privacy. Journalist at @privacyguides

Open-sourced & Open-hearted.
(she/her) 🏳️‍🌈

🔒 Privacy tips at: #TinyPrivacyTip
🐘 Mastodon tips at: #TinyMastodonTip

Other hashtags I talk about:
#DigitalRights #Privacy, #Security, #Python, #FOSS, #FLOSS #OpenSource

🐘 Also at: infosec.space/@Em0nM4stodon
🐘 And at : mastodon.social/@Em0nM4stodon
#NoAI #NoBot #NoIndex #NoArchive #nobridge

This is a personal account. Opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect my employer. Especially emojis

Journalist at	https://privacyguides.org/team
Web	https://emontheinternet.me
Blog	https://controlaltdelete.technology
Code	https://snakecase.software

The fascination that manufacturers have (had) with all things tech and how they could gimmick them into a car is as depressing as it is short sighted.

Cars are cars. They are not toys in your house.

Physical handles, dials, buttons and levers are there for a reason.

Touch screens and sensor pads are for your Xbox.

All of them need to get with the program.

8h ago

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Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦13h ago

@silvermoon82 @jalefkowit

👏 Just 👏 Use 👏 Mechanical 👏 Door 👏 Handles 👏

8h ago

Jason Lefkowitz 16h ago

Just use mechanical door handles. Just Use Mechanical Door Handles. JUST USE MECHANICAL DOOR HANDLES

https://www.theautopian.com/ford-just-recalled-every-mustang-mach-e-because-a-dead-battery-might-not-let-you-back-into-your-car-once-you-leave/

8h ago

Framework

20h ago

Wanna change the world with us? We're hiring! A special call out to those with Windows and *Linux* chops. Other key must haves in the "What you need" section.

https://ats.rippling.com/framework/jobs/66ee8c26-51c1-49a1-a0f0-41a4aad476fd

Community Escalations Specialist | Careers at Framework

The Position We’re looking for a Community Escalations Specialist with community support expertise to help deliver an excellent experience ...

8h ago

Elissa 9h ago

I used to take selfies with sharks. I was a real country then.

8h ago

donni saphire 11h ago

Just be nice whenever you can, and weird whenever you can get away with it

8h ago

Mr. Funk E. Dude 14h ago

So how many micro plastics do I have to have in my body to be considered a Lego?

Asking for a friend.

8h ago

Mastodon Migration 9h ago

BREAKING NEWS: Enormous Explosion at SpaceX in Texas

Incredible footage!

"Late Wednesday night at about 11PM CT, SpaceX was about to perform a static fire test of Ship 36, ahead of a planned 10th flight test for its Starship, when there was suddenly a massive explosion at the Massey’s Testing Center site... The site continues to burn at this time, about two hours after the explosion..."

Reported here: https://www.theverge.com/news/689901/spacex-starship-explosion-static-fire-test

8h ago

Advanced Persistent Teapot 1d ago

For the first time, I actually read an AI summary from a web search I made. I've avoided them until now, but my eyes glanced and took in the gist before I could blink.

It was on a topic I am a certified consultant in; I was just refreshing my memory. And it answered that the product worked in the way the customer wanted it to rather than the way I thought it did, and cited documentation and support forum links as the sources for that answer.

I checked them. It was wrong.

God I fucking hate this bullshit.

9h ago

frigginGlorious ✅1d ago

Be the internet you want to see in the world

Erik Moeller 19h ago

AI is an instrument of power.

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Erik Moeller 19h ago

I personally would much rather see AI built in the public interest, benchmarked and tested for its biases, than endorse a Butlerian Jihad against it. The latter will please people's egos, inevitably fail, and the instrument will still be used.

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txerren 🇵🇸19h ago

@eloquence well maybe but we still get the Bene Gesserit and millennia of genetic an cultural manipulation, right?

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Erik Moeller 19h ago

@txerren I for one look forward to my mentat training.

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martinl 🇨🇦🤝🇺🇦18h ago

@eloquence Sure, but is there even *one* example of a new technology that wasn't captured by predatory corporations or authoritarian States in the last, let's say 100 years?

@martinl Wikipedia.

@eloquence WP is a Web site, of which there are many. How's the Web *as a whole* (as a *technology*, one might say) these days? 😀

(Of course, it really depends on how we define "technology" vs "instance of a technology".)

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Erik Moeller 15h ago

@martinl

I would describe the web as more colonized (to an absurd degree, of course) than captured. It's still possible for any rando to put up a website without passing through a corporate gatekeeper - that's a big difference from the corporate compounds of, say, app stores.

It's worth noting that many more aggressive capture attempts (Flash, ActiveX, etc.) have failed. Mastodon is possible precisely because much of the web, as a technology, is still a public good.

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martinl 🇨🇦🤝🇺🇦14h ago

@eloquence Yes, "colonized" is the right word for it indeed! (When I used "captured", I was thinking of "regulatory capture", where large corporations can block newcomers almost entirely under the guise of following regulations.)

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awight 13h ago

@eloquence Yes, but LLMs are looking like nuclear fission so far. There are positive applications, but the actual benefits are often low and the waste side-effects produced are dangerous and unpredictable. People who use it too much seem to be getting sick in new ways.

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Erik Moeller 10h ago

I would draw an analogy not with fission but with social media. Online communities aren't inherently harmful (we're in one right now); social capture for profit maximization is.

As for existing AI, there are many positive potentials that public interest AI could realize: transformation of learning; use as an assistive technology; an extension of one's inner voice. But if we just look at what capitalism has wrought so far, it's easy to over-index on negatives.

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Erik Moeller 10h ago

ChatGPT usage is already _massive_ in the Global South and is displacing the role free knowledge resources used to play. It's easy to see this purely as capitalism being capitalism. But that's short-sighted -- it's also humans being humans, appreciating new ways to learn & discover the world.

The idea that there is one true form of knowledge is not epistemologically sustainable. I welcome its demise: knowledge deserves transformation into myriad forms.

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Erik Moeller 10h ago

But that can only happen on the basis of models that are truly open in every sense. We need public crawls (not constant re-indexing of the commons by corporate actors), public protocols, public models, and an open approach to managing harms and biases.

If the only goal is private profit, we really will build the torment nexus (corporate social media are a pretty good platform to build it on).

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n1k0 19h ago

@eloquence @serenity say as as say, not as I do

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Erik Moeller 19h ago

@serenity

Aw, you just gave me a Genesis flashback:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-rfCnW5VlE

Genesis - Jesus He Knows Me (Official Music Video)

YouTube

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TheStrangelet

19h ago

@eloquence Step 1 is defining what we're talking about when we say AI. GenAI in it's current iterations is wholesale theft of human art and culture, encloses even more of the commons for the benefit of the wealthy few, and is on track to burn our planet down. I'm ok with a wholesale war against all of those things.

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Erik Moeller 19h ago

@thestrangelet

We are unlikely to agree here, as I don't believe copyright is an institution worthy of preservation (though I also don't think it should be selectively enforced only against individuals copying from corporations, rather than corporations from corporations).

@eloquence it's pretty simple and sorry for using caps, but we all need to BOYCOTT BIG TECH. Let's be conscious and responsible consumers. It's more important than someone might think. It's actually absolutely vital.

#BoycottBigTech #BoycottElonMusk #BoycottX #BoycottTesla