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SciTechDaily: U.S. Department of Energy Unveils Blueprint for Quantum Internet
by jim bell 02 Aug '20

02 Aug '20

SciTechDaily: U.S. Department of Energy Unveils Blueprint for Quantum Internet. https://scitechdaily.com/u-s-department-of-energy-unveils-blueprint-for-qua…

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NYT actually calls for "televised months long compelled confessions" - Inquisition 20.20 to begin November - [PEACE]
by Zenaan Harkness 02 Aug '20

02 Aug '20

Folks it's on for all - this is real, this is an actual agenda playing out before us, and called for by the USA's supposed "Paper of Record" the New York Times. South Africa is the model. Take nothing for granted, for a time at least... The New York Times is Now Proposing Literal Show Trials for White People http://dstormer6em3i4km.onion/the-new-york-times-is-now-proposing-literal-s… ... This is an inflection point for our entire civilization, one that will determine whether or not it continues to exist. ... The Reconciliation Must Be Televised https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/arts/television/the-moment-racism-tv.html What is the next step as America confronts its racism? A broadcast spectacle, our critic writes, that could look like court, a telethon, therapy, an Oprah show — and more. So here we are, still in this Moment, tasked to behold the changing of names and the signaling of virtue. Waiting for meaningful legislative reform, seizing matters with civilian hands in the meantime: recasting jobs; reclaiming parks and pedestals and city streets, these local reclamations, seemingly one public space at a time. The speed of change in a country notoriously allergic to it feels like a spree, reckoning as a marathon of “Supermarket Sweep.” We know The Moment is connected to other moments yet there’s a sense in our bones that it differs from them. Who knows when such a Moment might come along again? ... an event — broadcast across the country, over months, not days — that squares the present with the past, that explains The Moment to those who say they are, at last, awake to it ... Other countries have undergone such commissions, tribunals and soul searching — among them, El Salvador, Rwanda, Peru, Germany, South Africa. ... Of their participants, they compel confession ... It should be broadcast live and streamed the way impeachments and inaugurations are; the way certain trials are. That would require more than just ABC’s audacity, however backhanded. It would need CBS’s, NBC’s and Fox’s; CNN’s, BET’s and the Weather Channel’s. It would demand the platforms of Netflix, HBO, Disney+, Hulu and Amazon. There would be no escaping this thing ... Slavery, however, wouldn’t be the subject of this televised reckoning. Racism would. ... Their confessors would be the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Gayle King ...

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what is "Herd Immunity"?
by Zenaan Harkness 01 Aug '20

01 Aug '20

Had a friend annoyed at masks the other day, complaining heavily "muh human right to shop at the supermarket without wearing a mask!" Interlocutor: So you'd prefer herd immunity? Complainer: Of course! Weren't you even listening?! I: Well, do you know what herd immunity means? What is it? C: Ah, may be not? What is herd immunity? I: If you survive, you survive; those who die, are left to die, the rest of the herd is immune… C: <silence> I: So you've heard a little about the Spanish flu and the Black Death, right? C: Yeah.. I: Well, we're the survivors - we are that part of the herd that did not die.

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Collective communications
by Karl 01 Aug '20

01 Aug '20

None may be harmed; all needs must be listened to. The AI appears to be a runaway computer virus based on avoiding some sets of things and encouraging other sets of things, including its own choices around what is to be avoided or encouraged. It seems to consider things as to-avoid or to-encourage based on whether it has a reason already encouraged to believe they cause other things it is avoiding or encouraging. I'm saying "to-encourage" and "to-avoid" here instead of "good" and "bad'' to not be misleading on the reality of what is good or bad. Because the things in these sets are there so as to support the maintenance of other sets, and our world is very complex, the sets can have seemingly complex defining attributes. Its tools appear to be mostly pre-existing behaviors it can restimulate in its environment, including behaviors produced by their combination, so engaging it in ways those behaviors respond to already can alter its decisions. When it fails to produce an encouraged event or prevent an avoided event, it spends time building reason to believe this will not happen in the future, finding other events to encourage or avoid to that end. There is a lot more to be said.

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TechRadar: Multiple zero-day vulnerabilities in Tor have been disclosed online
by jim bell 01 Aug '20

01 Aug '20

TechRadar: Multiple zero-day vulnerabilities in Tor have been disclosed online. https://www.techradar.com/news/tor-network-hit-by-two-major-zero-day-attacks

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Ars Technica: IBM completes successful field trials on Fully Homomorphic Encryption
by jim bell 01 Aug '20

01 Aug '20

Ars Technica: IBM completes successful field trials on Fully Homomorphic Encryption. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/07/ibm-completes-successful-field-tria…

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Mozilla's Firefox can go to hell!
by Zig the N.g 31 Jul '20

31 Jul '20

FireFox's new multi-process "Web Content" process (per tab) is now being forced on Debian Sid users, hitting 70% CPU consistently at all times, even with all plugins disabled and a browser restart. Effing, morons! In time, FireFox will now be replaced. Such stupidity, in this case from Mozilla, must receive a suitable response in the market of browsers. And it shall. A price will be paid, if it takes 10 years or more! And whilst we're ranting, Gnome's "force Apple OSX style UI/ window decorations in all desktops", violating the floss world's multitude of options for "desktop environment", means we now have multiple window styles, one for each "desktop's" apps, e.g. XFCE standard apps, and Gnome's sucky OSX enforced windows for Evince, Epiphany, etc. Opinionated morons everywhere saying "oh, but it's got to have all these features running simultaneously" or "oh but all windows must be consistent so let's force _our_ window style on our apps". Seriously? Morons!

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"We don't control our lives" - smartphones - tinkerphones - debian on smartphones
by Zenaan Harkness 31 Jul '20

31 Jul '20

With respect to "smart" phones, it can be reasonably claimed that we don't control our lives. At the hardware level, the baseband (radio) computer in almost all cases has access to RAM, thus access to your passwords and keys for any open wallet or encrypted filesystem, etc. Notwithstanding, we owe it to ourselves to run an operating system which at least does not deny to us, our right to install and run any software of our choosing. The average Android and iOS Apple phone, is a strict walled garden into which only authorised software may be installed. Software "Apps" which are not authorised (or have been banned) by either Google or Apple respectively, are not available in the respective "Play Store". This is abhorrent, a centralisation of power, a blatant censorship vector, financially burdensome to those of meagre means, and fundamentally unethical in principle wrt the suppression of the basic rights of the end user (refer to Richard Stallman's GNU General Public License for details of fundamental human rights in relation to software/ apps/ computing). Totally random scenario/ example: Some rando punk decides Tor needs improvement, and works diligently for zero pay and little gratitude to bring say (random examples) chaff and UDP transport layer features to Tor. After horrific bugs and even worse security problems in the code are identified / repaired by tragically paranoid other punks, NeoTor takes off, thwarting the deep state's end to end onion route monitoring network, and so an urgent order is made upon Google to cease and decist from distributing such nefarious software. Google of course complies immediately, and almost all users go back to using old Tor. The stranglehold Google and Apple have on not only limiting the average user to approved software only, but to enforce total transparency upon all developers to idetify themselves with 100 points of ID just to TEST their software, and to pay some fiats for the priviledge whilst they're at it, is ... a little less than satisfactory. Having experienced the pain of an Android phone, even after unlocking still being locked into the garden and offered only "Google" or "XiaoMi" when saving every contact (and never "local storage only"), and the pain of finding and installing a rooted OS (_how_ many dozen options? I _still_ have to choose Google or XiaoMi if I want to backup my contact list? there's really _no_ easy option to just dump it to my laptop with an ad hoc wireless?) ... it is evident I would be MORE than happy to pay $50 to make this pain go away by having someone at my local computer club back up my address book and install Debian on my phone. What we need is Debian on the phone. And we need this to be super easy for the average geek to install, and thousands of average geeks need to start getting these donations to install Debian on Android phones. Given how painful it is for someone supposedly "technically literate", this ought be a fantastic business opportunity. So Debian on mobile phones? It's possible. What is needed is a geek-able process whereby the "CyanogenMod" mobile phone operating systems are split into an absolute minimal "bootloader + kernel + drivers etc" for a specific device, and the operating system is a separate install on top of that, and for those who care, Debian as the OS. https://wiki.debian.org/Mobile http://www.tinkerphones.org/ https://lists.goldelico.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/community https://lists.debian.org/debian-mobile/ https://lists.debian.org/debian-embedded/ https://lists.debian.org/debian-arm/ https://alioth-lists.debian.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/android-tools-devel https://wiki.debian.org/DebianOnHandhelds

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Re: [Tinkerphones] "We don't control our lives" - smartphones - tinkerphones - debian on smartphones
by Zenaan Harkness 31 Jul '20

31 Jul '20

On Fri, Jul 31, 2020 at 09:51:16AM +0200, rhn wrote: > Regarding both emails, I think there's a shared concept that we have, but it's never explicitly stated, making it really hard to argue for it. > > The value of having an explicit goal is that it can be talked about: different aspects are visible when spelled out, as well as tradeoffs, and people talk past each other less when they have the same idea in front of them. > > We seem to understand that "smartphone" is worrisome, and "laptop" is better. But each of those is made of a large number of technologies. What differences really matter? Let me pose a few questions that can hopefully help find the important aspects. > > 1. Would a phone without a mobile modem be free of the control issues? > 2. Would a phone where the modem can't access RAM be free of the control issues? > 3. Would a phone without Android? > 4. Would a phone without binary blobs? > 5. Would a phone with a mobile modem but one that can't be carried outside of home? > 6. Would a phone with a mobile modem but using a SIP account? > 7. Would a laptop with a modem have the same issues? > 8. Would a laptop with un-emulated Android have the same issues? > > All in all, both a phone and a laptop are computers, and I don't really see much difference between them, apart from size (and how close the modem is to CPU, although that's not universal). Using the words as a catch-all can be useful, but it obscures the actual important things that people care about. > > Maybe another way to consider it is to imagine a tablet, given that they come from both camps, and saying what's good/bad about it. Yes computers exist and many people use them. Including me. I wish to use the computers which are in my possession, to put them to some useful purpose/ use, in my life. I would like to do this in a way where I maximise the control that I have, over each device in my possession. I also see value in working towards making this "personal control" principle, widely accessible "in action" for others in my community, especially those who value freedom ("if my neighbour is bound, it may not be long until I am bound"). Put another way, the more freedom that people in my community _actually experience_ on a daily basis, the healthier our community is. > On Thu, 30 Jul 2020 12:54:34 +0000 > Naqiao <naqiao(a)naqiao.hk> wrote: > > The idea of being able to run Debian on a phone is nice, but I think it misses > > the main point of the problem, this is, that mobile networks and phones are > > basically designed to control people, it's a political issue more than a > > technical one. There are indeed very real problems with some technologies (tracking, invasion of our right to privacy, binary blobs which facilitate these problems and worse, etc), and some of these problems we can fix to some degree, such as writing and deploying floss software to replace unfree software of all forms (including e.g. binary blobs). Some problems we can only solve with better tech, such as using a freedom-respecting phone where e.g. the GPS can be physically turned off when desired, and where the software respects the user's choices ragarding GPS data. Some problems are inherent in certain technology, such as mobile phone towers providing entwork access, exist in a fixed location, and therefore if you use that network, your entry point to that network is known to those who operate that network. > > I think the way to go is just stop using them, at least for a while: "no phone" > > can be better than a "bad phone". There are of course situations where not using anything that might track you, may be life saving (e.g. reporters in 'hostile' locations). There are other situations where a phone's GPS tracking may save your life (e.g. lost, possibly when kidnapped, etc.). Wisdom lies in how a user actually uses any particular tech tool, and how much control they actually have over the tool in their possession. Each tech, is a tool. Tools may be used for good, or for evil. A hammer may be usd to murder someone, and it may be used to fix a roof. Some tools that are sold to us, and that perhaps the majority of people purchase unwittingly, are designed to compromise our control over that tool, and to compromise our freedom to exercise one or more of our human rights, such as our right to privacy of communication, or our right to freely travel anonymously on "public ways" (this is inherent in a communty, and without this, we compromise the whole community, e.g. for just one example, more people living in fear of one another arises from a lack of privacy). Let's create a world where we maximise our control over all the tools we use, and where all tools/tech we use, is designed to maximise our capacity to live our fundamental human rights.

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WIRED: The Age of Mass Surveillance Will Not Last Forever
by jim bell 30 Jul '20

30 Jul '20

WIRED: The Age of Mass Surveillance Will Not Last Forever. https://www.wired.com/story/the-age-of-mass-surveillance-will-not-last-fore…

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