🌎 Discussion: Online Piracy, AI, Net Neutrality, Killswitch, and Other Internet Issues II

[Lily Adler]

Oracle being pro-Trump is kind of surprising. Silicon Valley isn't the Liberal sanctuary that Right wants us to believe. They have their own kaleidoscope of politics.

 

[Sithborg]

Oh, Silicon Valley knows who will let them get away with their bull****, and who will regulate them.

 

[Lily Adler]

I'm now seeing the media spin this as a good thing.

 

[Teelie]

It's Trump cronyism at it's worst.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

 

[Lily Adler]

The Onion?

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

People can't tell the Onion isn't real, that it's parody. Same people who probably think WWE is a legit sporting event and the myth around Donald Trump is real.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

somebody scared now, zuck.

 

[Teelie]

Too little, too ****ing late, again. Facebook knew about this years ago and let it proliferate because it was good for engagement, which means it got more money off advertisers who were at best indifferent to the threat.

 

[DJ Kornphlake]

 

[Teelie]

Congress needs to reinforce and strengthen that section instead of letting the Regressive party weaken it.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

Zuck: ‘Please don’t hurt us too bad after the election.’

US joins six countries in new call for backdoor encryption access

Broken/backdoored encryption is as bad as having no encryption at all. Like the people who wear their masks on their chin instead of over their mouth and nose, if they wear masks at all during the pandemic.

Might as well be an encryption ban because the outcome is the same.

 

[Teelie]

There is no such thing as backdoor encryption. Either it is encrypted or it isn't. These ****heads can't wrap their heads around that.

 

[Teelie]

And hey, something very pertinent to this discussion. Imagine the Trump Administration using this to root out "subversives" or attempting to blackmail people with. Or worse, getting hacked themselves and exposing literally everyone's private business to criminals (other than themselves).

Undocumented backdoor that covertly takes snapshots found in kids’ smartwatch

A popular smartwatch designed exclusively for children contains an undocumented backdoor that makes it possible for someone to remotely capture camera snapshots, wiretap voice calls, and track locations in real time, a researcher said.

The X4 smartwatch is marketed by Xplora, a Norway-based seller of children’s watches. The device, which sells for about $200, runs on Android and offers a range of capabilities, including the ability to make and receive voice calls to parent-approved numbers and to send an SOS broadcast that alerts emergency contacts to the location of the watch. A separate app that runs on the smartphones of parents allows them to control how the watches are used and receive warnings when a child has strayed beyond a present geographic boundary.

But that’s not all

It turns out that the X4 contains something else: a backdoor that went undiscovered until some impressive digital sleuthing. The backdoor is activated by sending an encrypted text message. Harrison Sand, a researcher at Norwegian security company Mnemonic, said that commands exist for surreptitiously reporting the watch’s real-time location, taking a snapshot and sending it to an Xplora server, and making a phone call that transmits all sounds within earshot.

Sand also found that 19 of the apps that come pre-installed on the watch are developed by Qihoo 360, a security company and app maker located in China. A Qihoo 360 subsidiary, 360 Kids Guard, also jointly designed the X4 with Xplora and manufactures the watch hardware.

“I wouldn't want that kind of functionality in a device produced by a company like that,” Sand said, referring to the backdoor and Qihoo 360.

In June, Qihoo 360 was placed on a US Commerce Department sanctions list. The rationale: ties to the Chinese government made the company likely to engage in “activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States.” Qihoo 360 declined to comment for this post.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

New action to combat ransomware ahead of U.S. elections - Microsoft on the Issues

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

YouTube - Managing harmful conspiracy theories on YouTube

Less than three weeks they put their finger in the air and felt which way the wind is blowing. It's despicable and pathetic that they enabled all this QAnon and Russian garbage for many years because the Republicans were in power.

 

[Teelie]

It brings in viewers who stay longer which means they see more ads which is more money for YouTube and thus, Google.

"Don't be evil" died long ago. Money now rules their ethics.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

Wall Street Journal - How Mark Zuckerberg Learned Politics
Facebook’s chief, once uninterested, has transformed himself into an active political operator in the Trump era

 

[Teelie]

Zuckerberg should feel ashamed of himself for supporting these people. But he has no shame and probably no soul.

 

[Mike5575]

The FCC attempts to "clarify" the meaning of section 230. They're wrong. The 1st amendment protects your freedom of speech from the government, not something that Facebook or Twitter does.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

 

[Teelie]

The FCC attempts to "clarify" the meaning of section 230. They're wrong. The 1st amendment protects your freedom of speech from the government, not something that Facebook or Twitter does.

But if businesses are people they have a right to the 1st Amendment.

It is utter bullt**** but then Section 230 is essential to the working of the internet and Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. are not government entities so they have no responsibilies to the 1st Amendment. They can allow or ban anything they want on their platforms. That is literally the entire purpose of Section 230. It is to give them freedom from government overreach. But then this is the Republican Party, the party of "small government" except when it suits them and they do a massive overreach no Democrat would attempt.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

Bloomberg News - Former Google CEO Calls Social Networks ‘Amplifiers for Idiots’

Former Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said the “excesses” of social media are likely to result in greater regulation of internet platforms in the coming years.

Schmidt, who left the board of Google’s parent Alphabet Inc. in 2019 but is still one of its largest shareholders, said the antitrust lawsuit the U.S. government filed against the company on Tuesday was misplaced, but that more regulation may be in order for social networks in general.

“The context of social networks serving as amplifiers for idiots and crazy people is not what we intended,” Schmidt said at a virtual conference hosted by the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. “Unless the industry gets its act together in a really clever way, there will be regulation.”

Google’s YouTube has tried to decrease the spread of misinformation and lies about Covid-19 and U.S. politics over the last year, with mixed results. Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. have also been under fire in recent years for allowing racist and discriminatory messages to spread online.

It used to be harder for fascists and idiots to find each other and organize. Then social media came along.

 

[Teelie]

Social media was supposed to help everyone communicate and learn we are not all that much different. Then of course they monetized the **** out of it and made people's bubbles even more insular than they ever were before so now all you talk to are like minded people and never get exposed to someone with an opposing point of view. Unless they are your family or some troll deliberately ****posting.

 

[Sithborg]

But if businesses are people they have a right to the 1st Amendment.

It is utter bullt**** but then Section 230 is essential to the working of the internet and Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. are not government entities so they have no responsibilies to the 1st Amendment. They can allow or ban anything they want on their platforms. That is literally the entire purpose of Section 230. It is to give them freedom from government overreach. But then this is the Republican Party, the party of "small government" except when it suits them and they do a massive overreach no Democrat would attempt.

I would be hesitant about that last part. Many on the left are not free speech absolutists. And while I am generally sympathetic about what they are fighting, they are too short sighted to see how it would work with the other side in charge.

In a similar vein, if anyone is interested, Lindsay Ellis has a pair of videos about that involve DMCA abuse, and gives an insight at how shortsighted some of these laws are and that they need constant tweeking. Fair warning, you may need brain bleach and will never see Tom Hardy's Bane the same way again, but the second video has spectacular lawyering I have not seen since Vic Mignogna's case, of "Vic is not excrement, thus calling him a piece of **** is defamatory" fame.