December 2022 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

NY Passes Right-to-Repair Weakened
by Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many 30 Dec '22

30 Dec '22

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/12/weakened-right-to-repair-bill-is-si… New York governor signs modified right-to-repair bill at the last minute Bill passed the state legislature with overwhelming majorities over the summer. ANDREW CUNNINGHAM - 12/29/2022, 1:27 PM New York state governor Kathy Hochul has signed the Digital Fair Repair Act into law[1], months after it had passed both chambers of the state's legislature with overwhelming bipartisan majorities. The bill had originally passed in June, but it was only formally sent to Hochul's desk earlier this month[2]; the governor had until midnight on December 28th to sign the bill, veto it, or allow it to pass into law without her signature. The Digital Fair Repair Act is the country's first right-to-repair bill that has passed through a state legislature (as opposed to being implemented via executive order[3]), and has been hailed as "precedent-setting" by right-to-repair advocacy groups like iFixit[4]. The law will require companies to provide the same diagnostic tools, repair manuals, and parts to the public that they provide to their own repair technicians. But tech industry lobbyists and trade groups like TechNet[5] had already worked to weaken the law as it made its way through the state legislature, and the bill as signed by Hochul contains even more conditions and exceptions, ostensibly added to address the governor's concerns about "technical issues that could put safety and security at risk, as well as heighten the risk of injury from physical repair projects." "I am pleased to have reached an agreement with the legislature to address these issues," Hochul wrote. Most notably, only devices manufactured and sold in New York on or after July 1, 2023 will be required to meet the law's requirements, excluding all currently extant products—the ones people already own that they might conceivably want to repair at some point down the line. "Business-to-business" and "business-to-government" equipment that isn't sold to consumers is also excluded. And manufacturers won't be required to provide passwords or other tools for circumventing device security lockouts—on balance, probably good for anti-theft features that Apple and other manufacturers[6] offer for stolen phones, but bad for people locked out of their own otherwise functional devices because they've forgotten a password or can't track down a recovery key. Manufacturers can also opt to provide "assemblies" of parts instead of parts by themselves "when the risk of improper installation heightens the risk of injury." If you wanted to replace your phone's display or battery, for example, a company could provide you a display or battery with a bunch of extra cables or other parts connected to it, regardless of whether you needed those parts or not. This could drive up the cost of repairs, lessening their appeal. These compromises are stacked on top of some broad exemptions already in the original bill, which exclude medical devices, motor vehicles, off-road equipment, or home appliances. Right-to-repair activists praised passage of the bill while acknowledging that the compromises make it weaker than it ought to be. “This is a huge victory for consumers and a major step forward for the right to repair movement," wrote iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens[7]. “New York has set a precedent for other states to follow, and I hope to see more states passing similar legislation in the near future.” "The right-to-repair bill that I've spent seven years of my life trying to get passed in my home state got fucked," said activist Louis Rossmann in a video explaining Hochul's changes to the bill[8]. "And it's funny, it got fucked in the exact manner that I thought it would... Because it getting passed without being tainted or screwed with would actually be good for society, and that's not something that [the] New York state government is going to allow to happen." andrew.cunningham(a)arstechnica.com https://www.twitter.com/AndrewWrites 1: https://twitter.com/JonCampbellNY/status/1608327624526548993 2: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/12/right-to-repair-bill-passed-in-… 3: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/07/bidens-right-to-repair-order-co… 4: https://www.ifixit.com/News/70515/new-york-passes-historic-right-to-repair-… 5: https://www.technet.org/our-story/members/ 6: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201472 7: https://www.ifixit.com/News/70515/new-york-passes-historic-right-to-repair-… 8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xGBB-717AI Comments with over 100 votes: B barich Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius 22y 7,657 Subscriptor Here is your replacement iPhone assembly. Just connect it to your existing Lightning cable and your repair is complete. Report Upvote 196 (198 / -2) Yesterday at 1:48 PM D disappointedreader Smack-Fu Master, in training 1y 9 Catmove said: When activists say "got fucked" without being specific, it REALLY doesn't do much for the solution they are pushing... Well, if you click through the link, you'd see it's part of a 12 miniute video that Ars decided to quote THIS part. So don't fault activists for being blunt and true from 2 sentences out of 12 minutes. Context, please. AND if you really want to blame someone, blame the Ars author who decided on that Pull Quote, just like You decided on that pull quote from the rest of the article that had a highly detailed description of how precisely the law was fucked. Report Upvote 171 (176 / -5) Yesterday at 1:50 PM Zacharot Zacharot Wise, Aged Ars Veteran 9y 125 And now that there is a weak bill, it will be whittled away by lack of compliance, and necessary lawsuits to get that compliance. At that point it will be held up as the reason that no further more stringent law is necessary. Why pass another bill that does the same as the old one? The opportunity to see real change is sailing away. Report Upvote 143 (148 / -5) Yesterday at 1:30 PM L llanitedave Ars Praefectus 9y 3,566 Exempting automobiles and home appliances? That's the very root of what right to repair was intended to address! Report Upvote 135 (135 / 0) Yesterday at 2:03 PM Fancy Internet Person Fancy Internet Person Ars Scholae Palatinae 4y 13,944 Sarty said: If you were a state lawmaker in, say, Connecticut, would you take a call from this man? Or would you politely shove his number on to the back-back-back burner? But I'm sure it felt good to shout about it #online. Do you think politeness alone is what makes for good advocacy? Report Upvote 108 (121 / -13) Yesterday at 1:44 PM R Roguewolfe Smack-Fu Master, in training 11y 52 Subscriptor Sarty said: If you were a state lawmaker in, say, Connecticut, would you take a call from this man? Or would you politely shove his number on to the back-back-back burner? Why do you think this is representative of his communiques for the last 7 years? If he indeed spent 7 years trying to get a law passed that would have, objectively, been better for society (and I believe it would have been) and corporate interests whittled it down into near-uselessness, don't you think he would be a little bitter? I think I would be pretty disillusioned and probably make a statement much like this, regardless of how polite or impolite I had been about it previously. Report Upvote 104 (105 / -1) Yesterday at 1:55 PM

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Cryptocurrency: Smaller Nations Adopting
by grarpamp 30 Dec '22

30 Dec '22

And will put the big begging on their knees in front of them... Fiji's New Pro-Bitcoin Prime Minister Ponders Legal Tender Bill: Report Newly elected Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka is pro-Bitcoin and is reportedly considering pushing a bill to adopt BTC as legal tender in the country... Pro-Bitcoin politician Sitiveni Rabuka recently took office as the new Prime Minister of the Pacific Islands of Fiji. Now, it seems the new PM is actively considering the adoption of bitcoin as legal tender there. While Rabuka himself hasn’t been very public about his opinions on Bitcoin thus far, Lord Fusitu'a, a noble and former member of parliament of neighboring nation Tonga, has reportedly confirmed that the Fijian politician is a bitcoin bull. "The new PM is definitely pro-Bitcoin," Lord Fusitu'a assured Cointelegraph. Lord Fusitu'a also shared the news on Twitter. "A new pro-#Bitcoin friendly Prime Minister in the South Pacific. Fiji’s newly elected Prime Minister @slrabuka," Lord Fusitu'a wrote, tagging Rabuka. In the second part of his tweet, Lord Fusitu'a hinted at the legal tender legislation. "Let’s go 2 for 2 - BTC Legal Tender Bills for the Pacific in 2023," the tweet reads, hinting at Tonga’s own Bitcoin legal tender legislation that could reportedly go live as early as Q2 2023. The Bitcoin dream first started brewing in Tonga right after El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law came into effect. Now, Fiji could be next in bringing BTC under its definition of legal tender. Lord Fusitu'a told Cointelegraph that Fiji’s new Prime Minister "asked to meet with me which we did via zooms since last year to walk him through step by step, how he could adopt bitcoin legal tender." Both countries could benefit tremendously from bitcoin adoption in two specific areas; remittances and mining. Remittances sent to Fiji accounted for 11.3% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2021, per World Bank data. Tonga’s situation is even more dramatic –– remittances were a whopping 45.5% of the nation’s GDP in 2021. When it comes to mining, both countries can take advantage of their geology. Being volcanic islands, there is a lot of opportunity to experiment with and profit from bitcoin mining. Moreover, Fiji also boasts significant hydro capacity.

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Drugs: Californians Want Legal Psychedelics Will State Let Them
by grarpamp 30 Dec '22

30 Dec '22

Bill Moves Forward That Will Legalize Psychedelic Drugs In California https://thefreethoughtproject.com/bill-moves-forward-that-will-legalize-psy… Despite the overwhelming evidence showing that kidnapping and caging people for possessing illegal substances does nothing to prevent use and only leads to more crime and suffering, government is still hell bent on enforcing the war on drugs. Like a crack addict who needs to find his next fix, the state is unable to resist the temptation to kick in doors, shake down brown people, and ruin lives to enforce the drug war. Instead of realizing the horrific nature of the enforcement of prohibition, many cities across the country double down on the drug war instead of admitting failure. As we can see from watching it unfold, this only leads to more suffering and more crime. Luckily, there are cities, and now entire states in other parts of the country that are taking steps to stop this violent war and the implications for such measures are only beneficial to all human kind. Eight years ago, Colorado citizens—tired of the war on drugs and wise to the near-limitless benefits of cannabis—made US history by voting to legalize recreational marijuana. Then, in 2019, this state once again placed themselves on the right side of history as they voted to decriminalize magic mushrooms. But this was just the beginning and their momentum is spreading—faster and stronger, toward decriminalizing all plant-based psychedelics. Then, this year, the state of Oregon decriminalized all drugs. Now, another state is following suit, but not just with psilocybin— a bill in California is moving forward with a legalization measure for other psychedelics like mescaline cacti, ayahuasca and ibogaine. The California Assembly committee is holding a hearing next month on the bill to legalize the possession, personal use, and facilitated and supported use of the following substances by adults 21 and over. psilocybin psilocyn MDMA LSD DMT mescaline (excluding peyote) ibogaine Senate Bill 519 was proposed last year but was put on hold in August to adjust the wording in order to ensure its passage. As the Tenth Amendment Center points out: Under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) passed in 1970, the federal government maintains the complete prohibition of many of the drugs on SB519’s decriminalization list and heavily regulates others. Of course, the federal government lacks any constitutional authority to ban or regulate such substances within the borders of a state, despite the opinion of the politically connected lawyers on the Supreme Court. If you doubt this, ask yourself why it took a constitutional amendment to institute federal alcohol prohibition. In effect, the passage of SB519 would end criminal enforcement of laws prohibiting the possession of these drugs in California. As we’ve seen with marijuana and hemp, when states and localities stop enforcing laws banning a substance, the federal government finds it virtually impossible to maintain prohibition. For instance, FBI statistics show that law enforcement makes approximately 99 of 100 marijuana arrests under state, not federal law. By curtailing or ending state prohibition, states sweep part of the basis for 99 percent of marijuana arrests. Furthermore, figures indicate it would take 40 percent of the DEA’s yearly annual budget just to investigate and raid all of the dispensaries in Los Angeles – a single city in a single state. That doesn’t include the cost of prosecution either. The lesson? The feds lack the resources to enforce marijuana prohibition without state and local assistance, and the same will likely hold true with other drugs. “With mental health issues on the rise, it is time that California take an incremental and measured step to dismantle failed war on drugs policies by ending the criminalization of people that possess and use substances with immense healing potential,” the bill’s sponsor Sen. Scott Wiener said in a statement of the bill’s purpose. “It’s the plants that are going to bring us back to sanity. We’ve got to listen to their message and we’ve got to live reciprocally with nature and restore the natural order,” Susana Eager Valadez, director of the Huichol Center for Cultural Survival and Traditional Arts said after Oakland passed a similar decriminalization bill in 2019. The Assembly Appropriations Committee will hear the case for SB519 on Aug. 3. It must pass the committee by a majority vote before moving to the full Assembly for further consideration. Hopefully it does and California shifts from kidnapping and caging people for these substances, to focusing on using them for therapy. While California is certainly no bastion for freedom — especially with their draconian COVID-19 response — bills like this are a win for everyone as it requires far less money to help people than it does to incarcerate them. Now, cops can try to focus on real crimes instead of kidnapping and caging people who are trying to heal themselves with a plant. Supporters hope the decision will begin a nationwide discussion about decriminalizing plant-based drugs.

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Easy way found to avoid G-Man infested sites like the current cypherpunks
by professor rat 30 Dec '22

30 Dec '22

Get off the internet

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The one where Jake inspires the production of Big Dog
by professor rat 30 Dec '22

30 Dec '22

The joke in the title is that the class NP is exactly the class for which "solutions" to a problem can be verified "efficiently." Something I just noticed while typing this in, however, is the comment about isolation from socially important problems. This resonates given the responses from others to the question about a research programme, suggesting that the right measure is to find something that "betters the world." https://ephermata.livejournal.com/2005/07/01/ https://ephermata.livejournal.com/88003.html#comments

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[ot][notes] how to automatically tag actions in video data
by Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many 30 Dec '22

30 Dec '22

just tried this; it isn't hard. i followed from https://mmaction2.readthedocs.io/en/1.x/get_started.html . i pursued this toolkit because it is used by the major new research models (although they aren't in it quite yet). 1. install mmengine and mmcv using mim pip3 install -U openmim mim install mmengine 'mmcv>=2.0.0rc1' 2. install mmaction2 from source (to quickstart with the demo data) git clone https://github.com/open-mmlab/mmaction2.git cd mmaction2 git checkout 1.x # or dev-1.x for cutting edg pip3 install -v -e . 3. download an action recognition model. i believe this model (tsn) is relatively old (2018?), but it is their example, and it is the one i just tried successfully. mim download mmaction2 --config \ tsn_imagenet-pretrained-r50_8xb32-1x1x8-100e_kinetics400-rgb --dest . 4. use the demo script and the downloaded model to select the top 5 labels from a list for an mp4 video. note: add --device=cpu if you want to run outside nvidia cuda. python demo/demo.py tsn_r50_8xb32-1x1x8-100e_kinetics400-rgb.py \ tsn_r50_8xb32-1x1x8-100e_kinetics400-rgb_20220818-2692d16c.pth \ demo/demo.mp4 tools/data/kinetics/label_map_k400.txt - the .py is the model config - the .pth is the model weights, larger file - the .txt appears to be a list of labels for it to choose from - i tried a different .mp4 and it seemed to work despite not normalizing the resolution, which seems quite surprising to me I don't know how to do this "properly" or if all the above is correct, but it worked for me. I like to store information once I have successes because I never know when I might dissociate away. The next new cutting edge model for doing this is InternVideo, one url for which is https://github.com/OpenGVLab/InternVideo . The weights were just released publicly 2 days ago, although I'm still waiting on confirmation to access the google drive myself. It's set up based on mmaction. It looks like the latest model available in stable mmaction is videoswin (2022); i have not tried it myself at this time. The surrounding framework can also perform many, many other tasks than simple action recognition, such as plotting human skeleton vertices or filling in missing video data.

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Brechtian punk cabaret
by professor rat 29 Dec '22

29 Dec '22

The Dresden Dolls are part of an underground dark cabaret movement that started gaining momentum in the early 2000s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dresden_Dolls Reposts exterior to the state apparatus

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Extracting a Molar
by professor rat 29 Dec '22

29 Dec '22

Having located a potential Satoshi suspect I request anarchist back-up to descend on his life and make it a living Hell. Details on my blog . . . https://sysad.org/stream What I want from each and every one of you is a hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in that area. Your suspects name is David Molnar. GO GET HIM. https://ephermata.livejournal.com/2004/01/14/ Any journalists reading this? Eat shit and die.

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First-Generation, Unopened iPhone From 2007 Gets $39,000 at Auction
by Gunnar Larson 29 Dec '22

29 Dec '22

https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-first-generation-unopened-iphone-from… HOMEPAGE HOME TECH An unopened first-generation iPhone from 2007 still in its original box has sold for more than $39,000 at auction Sarah Jackson Oct 17, 2022, 1:32 PM first iphone steve jobs Apple CEO Steve Jobs holds up the new iPhone that was introduced at Macworld on January 9, 2007. David Paul Morris/Getty Images A first-generation iPhone from 2007, still unopened in its original box, has fetched more than $39,000 at auction. That's more than 65 times its original price of $599, or roughly $860 in today's dollars. The phone has a 3.5-inch screen, a 2-megapixel camera, and the Safari web browser. Sign up for our newsletter for the latest tech news and scoops — delivered daily to your inbox. Email address Email address By clicking ‘Sign up’, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider as well as other partner offers and accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. High-performance computing can turn everyday professionals into superheroes. Here’s how it can help in healthcare, finance, and the environment. SPONSOR CONTENT by Microsoft Azure High-performance computing can turn everyday professionals into superheroes. Here’s how it can help in healthcare, finance, and the environment. If you had bought the first-generation iPhone when it debuted in 2007, it would've cost you $599. Fifteen years later, someone is paying almost $40,000 for the same thing. An original iPhone just sold for $39,339.60 at auction. It was unused and unopened, still in its original sealed box. "Collectors and investors would be hard pressed to find a superior example," the item description read. "Relevance and rarity comprise a winning formula for this red hot collectible." The tech relic was listed on LCG Auctions on September 30, and the auction concluded Sunday. It was estimated to fetch $30,000 or more on the auction block. Its price at sale is more than 65 times its original price when the phone first came out. Bidding started at $2,500. Hours before the auction ended, the top bid hovered around $10,000, but bidding ramped up as the auction neared its close. Unveiling it 15 years ago, late Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs called it "an iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator" all in one. The first-generation iPhone came with a 3.5-inch screen, a 2-megapixel camera, and the Safari web browser; it was initially available with only 4 GB or 8 GB of storage, but later had a 16 GB option. Apple's best-selling product has come a long way since then. The newest iPhone today, the iPhone 14, has a 6.1-inch screen, a 12-megapixel camera, and up to 512 GB of storage. It retails for $799.

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Re: Threats Posed by Third-Party Litigation Funding
by Gunnar Larson 29 Dec '22

29 Dec '22

December 22, 2022 The Honorable Merrick B. Garland Attorney General U.S. Department of Justice 950 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20530 The Honorable Lisa O. Monaco Deputy Attorney General U.S. Department of Justice 950 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20530 Mr. Mathew G. Olsen Assistant Attorney General National Security Division U.S. Department of Justice 950 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20530 Re: Threats Posed by Third-Party Litigation Funding Dear Attorney General Garland, The undersigned State Attorneys General write to ask the United States Department of Justice what steps are being taken to protect the country against potential threats posed by third-party litigation funding (“TPLF”) in civil matters by foreign entities hostile to the United States. As you know, TPLF refers to the practice of an outside third party providing resources to fund civil disputes with the understanding that if the claim is successful, the third party will receive a share of the recovery. This practice has become quite lucrative, as the market has swelled to an estimated value of between $2.3 and $5 billion invested in lawsuits in the United States.1, 2 It is impossible to know the extent that foreign adversaries are spending on American litigation through TPLF, which leads to significant concern that TPLF is being used to harm our States and threaten our country’s economic and national security. 1 https://www.natlawreview.com/article/considerations-aba-s-best-practices-li… 2 https://www.law360.com/articles/992299 Foreign adversaries leveraging our judicial system in order to undermine our nation’s interests is a grave concern to our States. Through strategic lending, foreign adversaries could threaten our economic and national security by weaponizing the U.S. judicial system.3 For instance, foreign countries such as China and Russia could use TPLF to fuel targeted lawsuits designed to weaken U.S. national defense companies in the business of protecting our national security interests. Likewise, costly litigation aimed at sabotaging major energy sectors that are vital to our economy poses a direct threat to our economic security interests and global independence. Despite several reports and public discussion on TPLF, the federal government has not implemented a strategy to protect our nation’s court system from foreign interference by adversaries set on damaging American institutions. Concerns have been raised about cases being funded to target specific individuals or businesses, or simply to further backlog our courts at the expense of the American taxpayers.4 Nevertheless, the federal government has remained silent. Ensuring that our justice system remains protected from foreign interference is of paramount importance. We are requesting information about what the Justice Department has done or is currently doing to address these concerns. The security concerns posed by foreign TPLF cannot be ignored any further without risking serious consequences to our nation. State Attorneys General stand ready to be part of the solution and we ask that our federal partners take action to help ensure that TPLF by foreign adversaries plays no role in American justice, our economy, or our national security. Sincerely, Christopher M. Carr Georgia Attorney General Jason Miyares Virginia Attorney General Steve Marshall Alabama Attorney General Leslie Rutledge Arkansas Attorney General 3 https://instituteforlegalreform.com/research/ilr-briefly-a-new-threat-the-n… litigation-funding/ 4 https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/3758137-foreign-state-sponsor… sovereign-immunity-from-being-sued/ Todd Rokita Indiana Attorney General Derek Schmidt Kansas Attorney General Daniel Cameron Kentucky Attorney General Austin Knudsen Montana Attorney General Douglas J. Peterson Nebraska Attorney General Dave Yost Ohio Attorney General Alan Wilson South Carolina Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti Tennessee Attorney General Sean D. Reyes Utah Attorney General Patrick Morrisey West Virginia Attorney General

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