It’s a legit idea, and there’s a thing like that, called Zero Knowledge Proofs (ZKP).
IMO it’s possible in theory. Like set up and managed in good faith, it can work mathematically, and you can prove it does.
My worry tho is that it wouldn’t be in good faith. It’ll be corrupted somehow. Or it turns out that enough other signals leak that it isn’t very effective. Like fingerprinting and stylometry and w/e allow ID’ing despite the ZKP layer.
As much as I’m a privacy guy, those are legit concerns IMO. IDK where the future goes, but I see reasons to worry.
TBH I’m more worried about the overall infopocalypse that’s already in progress. But I also can’t rule out an AI teaching somebody unhinged how to make a devastating biological weapon. Something only accessible in the past to very highly trained ppl, who were not gonna do that.
But I also want my privacy! And I believe privacy is essential to a functional democracy. Feels like every choice is a bad choice.
It’s a different company. Used to be a joint venture with the owner of the US brand, but it split off, and it’s completely separate now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kmart_Australia
But in looking that up, I learned that Anko, the brand in the story, is K-Mart Australia’s house brand, I guess kinda like Great Value for US based Walmart.
I fear that is the inevitable whimpered ending of the personal computing era. Cory Doctorow called it back in 2011.
The reason they placed federal charges against that guy was because he allegedly deleted incriminatory evidence.
NAL, but it may be important that there was no legal case pending at the time he gave the duress code. And like you said, he didn’t even enter the code himself. But it’s tricky since there’s also some clause in the law about reasonable cause to believe there could soon be a case.
In the end, the case is purely politically motivated, and the allegations were made up out of nothing. Hopefully that makes the case fall apart once it reaches the courts. Which has happened in lots of other cases, like Reflecting Pool Olympian Guy. I hope the EFF will get some high powered legal rep spun up for this guy. Protip, donating to the EFF is good, so they can afford to do that for important civil rights cases.
I’m still NAL, but I’m hopeful that Graphene Guy will be exonerated by a jury. Ofc, it still sucks, b/c he has to spend his time and money dealing with this.
deleted by creator
so eventually people not using “approved” OSs may be locked out of most of the internet
Agree 100%. I hope everyone realizes this! I have seen too many ppl who think, “It’s OK, open source will save us”. But open source can’t. This is a legal and social prob, and needs a legal and social solution.
Sorry, what is the story about guy in USA with GrapheneOS?
Someone else linked the story, but do note that he isn’t in jail. Or wasn’t last I looked a week ago. He IS facing criminal charges, which is very serious. It will most likely become a Big Important Case and could even get appealed up and up until it reaches SCOTUS.
Current SCOTUS is corrupt. But sometimes they have managed to make good rulings anyway, such as in Carpenter v. United States, and Chatrie v. United States, about GPS location privacy.
I say this b/c social media leads ppl to believe extreme versions of events. There were allegations in another lemmy thread that this GrapheneOS Guy was in prison. He is not. He was at his own home. But he is facing a very stressful future as a criminal defendant. He may, hopefully, be exonerated. But it remains to be seen, how it will go. Anything could happen.
Wasn’t there something about the effectiveness of the Australian law to restrict minors on social media? Ah…
Four in five under-16s in Australia using social media despite ban, study shows
Experts say law not enough to stop children accessing harmful content online and more ‘convincing strategy is required’ . More than 80% of under-16s in Australia said they were still using social media three months after legislation banning them from it came into force, research shows.
Yah. TBH, I think it was inevitable once we hit an inflection point in the tech v. price curve.
In the 1960’s, maybe the CIA could build a one off mechanical spy insect. But that was never gonna be a thing at consumer scale. Today, couple hundred dollars, euros, pounds, and every Joe Sixpack can wield surveilence tech 50 times better than the top three letter agencies could back then.
actually really taxing to try and be fully aware of everyone, everything and yourself
Sorry you gotta deal with that level of stress.
The fucked up thing, is it just keeps getting worse. In-store cameras are bad enough. But at least there, the footage will prob never hit the tiktok circuit. When private citizens buy their own mass surveilence, and turn everything into social media content, that just keeps on growing. There are entire sites built around that form of content.
I heard about some poor guy in the UK. Got detained for “acting suspiciously” since he was avoiding London’s cameras. Police stopped him and compelled a photograph for their facial ID. He never did anything wrong! Zero criminal record. Guy just didn’t enjoy being on camera. Which they then forced him to be.
The backlash isn’t as powerful as the drive to monetize another accessory
Yah you’re prob right. I always wish ppl just wouldn’t buy these, or rings, or w/e. So co’s would learn that it’s a guaranteed financial loss, to bring them to market.
But I know that’s a pipe dream. Sigh.
Yah, I want the rings and flocks gone too!
We went down this road too much already, but going down it even more just makes it even worse IMO. It isn’t a black & white situation, in the end. It’s a matter of degree.
You could achieve the same by wearing a GoPro on your head.
But a gopro on the head, or a phone held up to record, is much more conspicuous. These smart glasses are made for ppl to record their life 24/7. That automaticlaly means, other ppl’s lives will be recorded by that person. Without their knowledge.
It is also bad with a gopro or a phone, ofc. But smart glasses make the prob even worse. That doesn’t even get into the uses these will be put, creeping on women at beaches or w/e. If you go holding up a phone to creep somebody, there is social pressure to stop being an ass. You may even be asked to leave the venue. But when it is unobtrusive with smart glasses, the social pressure erodes b/c people don’t even know.
I agree automatic upload is a prob. But even if it’s local, the mere fact of walking around recording everything you see, means other ppl’s worst moments are going to feature in tiktoks a LOT more often. And much more clickbait content made at the expense of ppl who don’t even know they are being recorded, trying to make them look bad for the content. I agree, that happens already in other ways. But that doesn’t mean we should want to see the prob get even worse.
IDK, but i looked briefly a couple years ago and I wasn’t happy.
Many of todays “dumb” phones run android just in a locked down mode where you can’t install apps. There are a couple other OS options, I can’t remember the names of those now. But they still had a full OS. Just running in a restricted mode.
To me dumbphone means just that. Dumb! No OS. Just enough h/w to connect to the cell network, like those HUGE oldschool cell phones in the 80’s. Except small for pockets now. Once my dumbphone runs android, it opens up attack surface I don’t want.
But I didn’t spent too much time looking. So could be my seach skills failed me.
YW! We’re in an info-overload world, so it’s just inevitable to miss things. Esp if they don’t get lots of headline time. Or get amplified on social media.
No worries. Happens.
I agree with the general sentiment of your post BTW.
Where was the FTC action when it was revealed that period apps were selling user data?
It was here -> https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/192-3133-flo-health-inc
I know you’re being rhetorical, but your post could easily leave people with the impression that the FTC did NOT go after those apps too, when ofc they did. There were financial settlements, there were requirements to obtain affirmative consent, there were prohibitions on prior behaviors.
Seconded. Yay for librewolf! That’s my go-to browser now too.
Tho I also agree with [email protected], we still need moz to maintain the engine. There are only 2 (?) cross platform browsers engines left.
This is the prob with the web becoming a highly complex app engine. The technical reqs to make a browser engine are so high, only a few huge companies can do it. Even MS gave up. G now has a lock on desktop browsers, esp if you count all the rest like Edge that use G’s engine. That gives G monopoly power to dictate web standards. And pull hostile acts like HW attestation that could lock out open OSs like Linux unless you “authenticate” with Android or IOS.
IDK, I’m less sold on your proposed solution, than on your proposed problem existing. :)