[HN Gopher] US authorities can see more than ever, with Big Tech...
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US authorities can see more than ever, with Big Tech as their eyes
Author : jethronethro
Score : 205 points
Date : 2025-02-28 04:35 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (proton.me)
(TXT) w3m dump (proton.me)
| billy99k wrote:
| The government colluded with Facebook and Twitter during the
| Biden administration to censor and control Americans.
|
| When liberals are in charge and it's hidden from the public, we
| don't see any of these articles and nobody seemed to even care.
| SlightlyLeftPad wrote:
| Not quite, I still cared and I've personally written to
| congress about it. Surprisingly, I got a response.
| Unsurprisingly, the response I got was basically a diplomatic
| "We know better than you do, we don't care what you think,
| we're going to do it anyway"
| anonym29 wrote:
| Many (but not all, it's worth noting) people who work for the
| government live in an apartheid society inside their own
| heads, where they and everyone else who works for government
| is the superior tier of their imaginary hierarchy, and
| everyone else is thought of as "lesser than", with fewer
| rights, a different (more strict) set of rules, on the
| inferior tier of their imaginary hierarchy.
|
| Next time you're observing this, try to imagine the outrage
| if the government official were a white South African
| government official talking to a black South African citizen.
| There's the same level of condescending animosity and
| supremacist ideology at play, just along a completely
| different axis - employer rather than skin color.
| gamgam69 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure this is just inside YOUR own head.
| SlightlyLeftPad wrote:
| Yeah I do imagine that on a regular basis yet, something
| about my comment appears to be unpopular since I'm being
| downvoted. I usually don't mind but this one bothers me a
| little bit since writing to congress is just about the only
| thing an average American can do to influence the
| legislation. Actively participating in democracy is not
| cool these days.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| I do care about privacy but only one party wants me dead for
| being transgender
| panny wrote:
| Scott Pressler, a gay man, was almost single handedly
| responsible for swinging Pennsylvania, and therefore the 2024
| election. He motivated 200,000 Amish to get out and vote
| after the FDA overeach tried to shut them down. MAGA loves
| their LGBT.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Presler
| ben_w wrote:
| They may be OK the first three initials, but they treat the
| fourth as a kind of insanity.
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| You are replying to someone who says they are transgender.
|
| MAGA does not love trans people. Anti-trans rhetoric was
| thick during the campaign. Trans members of the military
| are being forced out. If you attempt to enter the US with a
| passport that indicates a different gender than you were
| assigned at birth, you might be banned from ever entering
| the US again. Significant effort has been taken to erase
| the concept of trans people from government websites and
| media.
|
| A couple tokens does not change this. The actions speak for
| themselves.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| That number can't be true. His speciality is "legal ballot
| harvesting" so I suspect this story is parallel
| construction for where he really got 200,000 ballots.
|
| https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/oct/29/tweets/cl
| a...
| bilbo0s wrote:
| _The government colluded with Facebook and Twitter during the
| Biden administration_
|
| There's people that think this only happened during the Biden
| Administration?
|
| Not Obama? Not Trump? Not Bush? Just Biden?
|
| The gullibility of Americans in aggregate is stunning at times.
| If you're one of those still out preaching the quasi-religions
| of "left" or "right", you're honestly a large part of the
| problem at this point. And you're probably too submerged in the
| holy waters of your quasi-religion's divine scriptures to even
| begin to understand why.
| anonym29 wrote:
| I'd hazard a guess that the person you're responding to is
| _not_ so naive that they believe this was unique to the Biden
| administration, but rather, is frustrated at what they feel
| is this kind of government tyranny often only being discussed
| through a partisan, one-sided lens that they might
| characterize as emphasizing this kind of stuff when
| conservative administrations do it but downplaying when
| progressive administrations do it.
|
| I'm not necessarily supporting or defending that position,
| but we should at least strive to argue against the steelman
| version of our opponent's position, rather than the strawman
| position, no?
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Steelman is "they meant what they said."
|
| ie - no reinterpretation at all.
|
| But even taking your reinterpretation at face value, it
| still couches the issue in terms of the "left" and "right"
| quasi-religions, no?
| anonym29 wrote:
| We must have different definitions of steelman. I have
| always understood steelman to be the opposite of
| strawman. To argue with the strawman of their argument is
| arguing a weaker version of the argument than the one
| they're really making - i.e. "I assume because they
| didn't mention any other administrations, they must be
| some dumb idiot who only thinks this happened during the
| last administration", while arguing the steelman is
| arguing against the strongest version of the argument
| they're trying to make - i.e. "sure, that poster didn't
| mention other administrations, but let's give them the
| benefit of the doubt - if we asked them whether they'd
| support similar surveillance done by the Obama admin or
| Bush admin, I'd be willing to guess they'd say no, I bet
| they're just expressing frustration about the left's
| unwillingness to acknowledge the Biden admin's big tech
| collusion, even if their real qualm is with the
| surveillance itself, not the partisan coverage of it".
|
| I personally detest covert surveillance and social
| influence operations being waged by taxpayer-funded
| organizations (regardless of whether public or private in
| nature) against their own citizenry, and I oppose this
| across the political aisle. I think it reeks of
| institutions that distrust and fear us more than they
| represent our collective interests, and that's an ugly
| mindset unbecoming of a government or enterprise that
| publicly paints itself as a champion of free and open
| democracy on the world stage, regardless of whether it's
| an intelligence agency or an international social media
| platform. But I also recognize that it's bipartisan, and
| that most people seem to care more about deploying force
| against the other side than they do about reducing the
| amount of force that is deployed against all of us.
|
| Where does your definition of steelman come from?
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Model UN
|
| ie - Strawman is to argue an easy to refute point they're
| _not_ making. Whether that point is stronger or weaker is
| irrelevant. The key is you came prepared to refute the
| point. Steelman is to argue the point they 're making.
|
| But we're getting into irrelevant semantics at this
| point. Neither the poster's point, nor mine centered on
| the definitions we have of steelman or strawman.
|
| My material point was on the tendency of people to embed
| what amount to using quasi-religious scripture quotations
| in discussions of completely non-religious problem areas.
| To the point of making it difficult for any, uh, "non-
| believers", out there to make any progress towards
| improvements.
|
| Or, put another way, being the problem.
| watwut wrote:
| > one-sided lens that they might characterize as
| emphasizing this kind of stuff when conservative
| administrations do it but downplaying when progressive
| administrations do it.
|
| Conservative administrations are worst tho. That is the
| objective reality. And as of now, there is not left wing
| analogy to what conservatives are doing. Democrats are not
| perfect, but common, the aggression and fanatization of the
| actual party is not even close. It is moderate center on
| the "left side" vs the thing we see on the right.
|
| One sided lens are the ones that achieve "equality" by
| euphemism away conservative goals and behaviors while
| trying to paint their opposition in worst possible light.
| Obama wore tan suit which totally breaks respectability of
| the presidency and therefore, he is equal to Trump who
| talks about "grabbing women by the <body part>" kind of
| false equality.
| psychlops wrote:
| While the OP may think that, you are assuming a lot about
| their thinking from those two sentences. Then somehow manage
| to generalize it to Americans and include religion.
|
| Maybe go outside and take a breath of fresh air?
| majormajor wrote:
| HN has been full of privacy and critical-of-government-
| surveillance articles regardless of the presidency for over a
| decade.
|
| Most obviously, who was President when Snowden leaked things?
|
| Methinks you are overly sensitive on behalf of your chosen
| boss.
|
| OR you are trying to deflect from the surveillance by making it
| a partisan thing.
| notber293 wrote:
| Twitter published a big of gov interference. I distinctly
| remember most reactions were just nothing-burger. Just partisan
| politics.
| surfpel wrote:
| Leave please, rational statements on politics are not allowed
| here. You are only allowed to base your opinions on the
| contradictory, irrational rhetoric of the two dominant right-
| wing neoliberal political parties. You are not allowed to point
| out that both political parties encroach on American liberties
| and fundamentally work together to get it done. Your
| understanding of history, economics, and society must be based
| entirely off of vibes. "Left" and "Right" as terms must be
| completely devoid of real substance and refer primarily to a
| color and which insufferable attitude you hold.
| leptons wrote:
| "Both sides are the same" has no relevance anymore. Every day
| since Jan 20th 2025 one side has been proving they will do
| anything and everything they can to destroy democracy and
| America. The other side doesn't have any power to stop them,
| mainly because people didn't show up to vote.
| error_logic wrote:
| Voting within the plurality system gave voters access only
| to the inputs of the Nash Equilibrium decision matrix, not
| the outputs. All it took was everyone being focused on
| winning by making the other side lose, and suddenly "we"
| all lose.
|
| If instead we voted with permutations of {+1, +0.5, -0.5}
| assigned to a single combination of up to 3 candidates
| without duplication of score or candidate, we would be
| voting for the _outcome_ of the decision matrix and
| avoiding the tragedy of the commons.
|
| But we didn't, and won't, so we brave the new world of
| tragically aligned AGI known as government. If the pattern
| isn't recognized, real AGI (rather than the metaphor of
| government) would definitely learn from it and wipe out
| humanity at this rate.
| leptons wrote:
| >If instead we voted with permutations of {+1, +0.5,
| -0.5} assigned to a single combination of up to 3
| candidates without duplication of score or candidate, we
| would be voting for the outcome of the decision matrix
| and avoiding the tragedy of the commons.
|
| And if there were pies in the sky, nobody would go
| hungry.
|
| Sorry, but you have to work with the system you have, not
| the system you want.
|
| If more people showed up to vote, Republicans would have
| no power.
|
| The only _good_ path forward is to elect Democrats _and
| then push them further left_. Anything else is fantasy.
| xyzal wrote:
| Where was that nightmare GDPR letter template again?
| TriangleEdge wrote:
| Wait until that author learns about Edward Snowden or
| advertisement agencies.
|
| I used to play with Twitters firehose back in the day and there's
| quite a lot of personal data you derive from private accounts. We
| could tell the city someone likely lived if they followed a
| certain amount of people from a specific city, etc. Could also
| guess their gender with 95% accuracy with just using n-grams from
| their tweets. We'd test our algorithms with public accounts.
|
| I think there's too much power and money in personal information
| for it to stop.
| Y-bar wrote:
| He wrote about Snowden as late as last year:
| https://proton.me/blog/us-warrantless-surveillance and
| corporate role in surveillance state before that
| https://proton.me/blog/privacy-user-data-requests
| Syonyk wrote:
| The book from a year or two ago, "Means of Control," by Tau, goes
| into some pretty good detail on the data collection and sales
| from just the adtech firms - where the entire ecosystem seems to
| be, "You can't use our data for anything but advertising... _wink
| wink_ ", and everyone knows exactly who is bidding on ads, and
| never winning any, just to slurp up location data and sell it. Or
| the "companies that don't sell the government." Also, they don't
| vet any clients beyond "The credit card is good."
|
| > _And because giants like Meta, Google, and Apple must collect
| as much of your personal data as possible, there's little they
| can do to protect your privacy._
|
| I quite disagree with the "must" there. They _choose to_ collect
| as much data as possible, because that 's their business model.
|
| And the good news is, it's fairly easy to opt out of quite a lot
| of that.
|
| Turn location services off, turn your phone off when moving
| about, and pay cash without "personal tracking cards" associated
| with you. Just about everywhere has [local area code] 867-5309
| registered, if you care.
| zeta0134 wrote:
| For a couple of years now I've been using [my area code] - 555
| - [a unique 4-digit pin] for dealing with otherwise "walk-in"
| business that look at you like you have three heads if you
| decline to say a phone number out loud. In the US at least, the
| 555 block is defacto "fictional" and typically isn't assigned
| out, so it lets me create a valid looking number that won't
| accidentally ring some random real person if they try to call
| it.
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| Minor quibble, 555 isn't fictional, it's typically reserved
| for teleco internal use, or at least that was the case 25
| years ago, who knows what the deal is now. Used to be you
| could wardial 555-xxxx and end up with all kinds of weird
| AT&T field installations, back office numbers, switch remote
| command and control modem numbers, etc.
| function_seven wrote:
| The fictional block exists, but it's not the entire 555
| prefix. It's 555-01xx.
|
| It _was_ the entire "Klondike-5" block, but got narrowed.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| The basic rule of thumb is, if a company knows something about
| you, then the government does too.
|
| Which means they know everything you have posted, everywhere
| you've gone, everywhere you've worked, what you think
| politically, and almost certainly have AI profilers trying to
| "precog" you.
|
| To say nothing of camera surveillance, gait analysis, facial
| recognition, license plate tracking, cell phone signal
| interceptors.
|
| All it takes is for one authoritarian to walk in and turn the
| key and POOF we have perfect.
|
| Are we in danger of that? Oh right, no politics on HN. Don't
| worry, be happy folks.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| A one-off or series of authoritarians should be the least of
| your concern. They tend to be controversial and have great
| difficulty amassing the political will to get their things
| truly done and set in stone. A constantly popular government
| should be what keeps you awake at night. Because people who
| are otherwise capable of "hold a job, support myself" levels
| of intelligent thought will tie themselves into knots to
| support otherwise unjustified screwing at the hands of a
| government they support.
| zitsarethecure wrote:
| Or an authoritarian propped up by popular and powerful
| monopolistic corporations to which otherwise capable people
| depend on for their jobs.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Isn't that basically what every modern government is
| regardless of dictatorship vs democracy?
|
| Priority #1 seems to be defending state moneymaking
| interests and state adjacent/intertwined BigCos
|
| Priority #2 seems to be expanding their own power
|
| Priority #3 seems to be micromanaging in social issues at
| the behest of various special interests to distract from
| #1 and #2
|
| Keeping us all from keeling over from heavy metal
| poisoning or whatever is way, way, way down the list
| unless it bleeds up to #3 for whatever reason.
| seveneves7s wrote:
| Just don't bring your phone with you. With low power states and
| opaque software and hardware, you really can't risk it. You can
| never be sure it's truly off, unless it's in a Faraday bag. But
| is it worth it?
| amelius wrote:
| The magnetic field passes through a Faraday cage, so even
| then there are no guarantees if the phone uses unconventional
| modes of communication. Ultrasonic audio is another one.
| fsflover wrote:
| My phone has hardware kill switches for modem, WiFi/BT and
| camera/mic. So I _can_ be sure. The schematics is available,
| too.
| smgit wrote:
| Its like expecting farm animals to keep track of how the farm
| works, as the farm gets more and more sophisticated in animal
| domestication and exploitation. The individual action argument
| was weak 10 years ago and its worthless today.
|
| The is a Systemic problem. Doesn't matter what the individuals
| do.
| ty6853 wrote:
| The trouble is people thinking it can be fixed with the
| system. I've been to a few dictatorships, none of them had
| the slightest clue what I was doing because the government
| was too poor and distracted with stuff like militias at their
| door to take much interest in what I was doing.
|
| Safety comes from dysfunctional governance. Surveillance is a
| property of functional governance. Embrace disfunction.
| lazide wrote:
| Eh, that's overly rosy.
|
| Plenty of ineffective dictatorships will happily line you
| up against the wall with _bogus_ surveillance. And shitty
| surveillance states will happily fake surveillance or data
| to look more effective.
|
| The danger with these types of State organs is they are
| constantly trying to justify their existence and cover up
| their mistakes, and if you can be thrown in the gears, some
| places are happy to do that.
| ty6853 wrote:
| Im sure when I fought for the YPG Assad might have liked
| that, unfortunately all the bogus surveillance in the
| world is no use when your army cannot enforce their
| borders or sovereignty. In any case I saw guys with AKs
| posting to Facebook, no bogus stuff needed, they were
| already publicly providing all the evidence needed for
| the death penalty without any worry of being prosecuted.
| lazide wrote:
| I don't think we're disagreeing. My point is that while
| those folks shooting AKs in the air are doing their
| thing, some other random putz that never did anything
| like that is probably getting nailed to the wall by the
| same system.
|
| And unlike an effective/accurate surveillance system, you
| can't be safe by just not being the AK weilding guys. In
| fact, sometimes you're safer because you're more
| dangerous, and they'd rather find someone easier to pick
| on.
|
| Third world places aren't what they are because of a lack
| of rules or systems (usually), but rather because the
| rules and systems aren't fit for purpose and produce the
| wrong outcomes.
| ty6853 wrote:
| Ah yes absolutely. Under no system is anyone safe if
| they're unable to bear arms to protect themselves/family,
| they will be systematically vulnerable or vulnerable to
| the next bandit. This just becomes more visible under
| disfunction.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >Plenty of ineffective dictatorships will happily line
| you up against the wall with bogus surveillance. And
| shitty surveillance states will happily fake surveillance
| or data to look more effective.
|
| Sure, but that's the exception. Governments have a
| pyramid of needs too. Governments don't throw a bunch of
| resources on things with poor returns, like shooting
| people who haven't done much wrong, when there's easier
| fruit to pick. Sure, you can go full jackboot on specific
| issues here and there but that's not sustainable on a
| "will I retire in peace of will I hang from the overpass"
| timeline. And even if you're the dictator's henchman and
| want to go down some rabbit hole of killing people you
| don't like the the fact that the dictator may have you
| shot for waste or as a sacrifice when that provokes
| unrest or dissatisfaction among the people generally
| keeps the government in line. And the government really
| doesn't want to be killing people because it needs people
| to do things and pay taxes.
|
| Look at all the historically violent dictatorships that
| lasted a long time and for many leaders. They all provide
| for their people generally. They might not be competitive
| absolutely but they keep things generally moving in a
| positive direction decade over decade and keep the
| country doing at least as well as its peers. The ones
| that don't tend to fall apart after a couple bad leaders.
|
| I really shouldn't need to be explaining this. This is
| how every European monarchy worked just with god and
| birthright as justification instead of backroom dealing
| and politics and false elections.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| I question your priorities.
| monero-xmr wrote:
| It is impossible to avoid, and if you try to avoid it, you
| stick out. The correct maneuver is to appear normal, but
| selectively shutdown the system. Turn your phone on airplane
| and pay with cash with the moment is right. We live in a
| panopticon afterall.
|
| In a country with the rule of law like the USA, the government
| can know you committed a crime, you know you committed a crime,
| society may suspect you of committing a crime, but criminal law
| requires a jury to convict beyond reasonable doubt. With a good
| lawyer this is a very tough bar, it's how organized crime gets
| away with so much (and despite the mafia being out of the news,
| they operate extremely well to this day).
|
| So selectively you choose when to be anonymous. You pick your
| battles.
|
| As a practical matter that may help the average HN normie, if
| you have a family you likely have life insurance. Never, _ever_
| , buy alcohol, marijuana, or cigarette / vapes / nicotine
| products with a credit card. Always pay cash. If you die the
| insurance company will go through everything to try and deny.
|
| In the reverse case, the modern day can help you. If you drive,
| get a dashcam. You don't have to reveal video if you are at
| fault. But if not at fault, the video is gold. Put cameras
| around your house.
|
| If you have rental property attached to your primary domicile,
| never have the internet under your own primary internet, lest
| you give reason for a wayward tenant to cause a search of your
| own home.
|
| You aren't protecting yourself for the 99.99% time, you are
| prepared for the 0.01% case
| mistrial9 wrote:
| ok but -- combined with innate hostility or rampant
| selfishness, this degenerates into the famous "low trust
| society" fairly quickly. Certainly there is room for work on
| fair courts and laws somehow? in the daylight?
| mnky9800n wrote:
| I was watching this old British show called connections where
| they try to connect random things in the world together and
| they talk about your online persona and how the world will
| change because of the internet and World Wide Web. What I found
| interesting is that they present it all as if there will be an
| online version of you that you should treat, essentially, as a
| separate entity. It is not you, it is your representative to
| the digital space. That you should think of it as some agent
| that does things for you in that space even though in reality
| it's simply a collection of data about you. But I liked that
| idea because it helps create a delineation between you the
| person and your online presence. I think what people don't
| realize these days is that it is rather difficult to be
| anonymous online in the same way it is rather difficult to be
| anonymous in a room full of people you know. This is because
| your online profile is essentially known to any online actor
| who wants to know as you and the article point out. But tbh I
| think most people, including myself, spend too much time
| engaging in doing things connected to online. You don't need
| slack and zoom to talk to colleagues it is possible to have in
| person interactions. You don't need strava to go for a run. You
| don't need your phone to go to the coffee shop and read a book.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| I'm a big fan of the show. People who only use Facebook, I
| don't expect them to dress their speech based on anonymity.
| People who actually fear a surveillance state, same deal. So
| how shall we depict the minority (on HN and IRC, etc) who
| expect anonymity as a feature?
| enahs-sf wrote:
| My personal favorite is 281-330-8004.
| vgeek wrote:
| Who?
| gilbetron wrote:
| > And the good news is, it's fairly easy to opt out of quite a
| lot of that.
|
| The problem is that we really need something like herd
| immunity. If you opt out, but the rest of the people in your
| life do not, then it's possible to discover most of your data
| most of the time. You might have location services off, but
| your friends and family don't, so much of the time there's a
| good guess where you are at. Or you might not share your phone
| #, but it can be collected by those that you text or call and
| shared that way. Creating "shadow accounts" is very advanced
| these days.
|
| Not to mention, "opt out" has to be actually true and not just
| a facade.
| tptacek wrote:
| What these analyses always miss is that providers on foreign soil
| have even less protection against the US IC: breaking into
| foreign providers is literally NSA's chartered mission. That's
| not to say you should deliberately use US providers! Unless, that
| is, abuse of legal process in the US motivates your
| decisionmaking, in which case: an abused legal process beats no
| process requirements at all.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| It's the NSA's job to do that domestically, it's just supposed
| to be firewalled by some hidden kangaroo court that absolutely
| doesn't do its job: FBI agents have been busted stalking
| women/exs several times.
|
| Has been since 9/11. Remember, there's the omnipresent
| neverending war on terror.
| tptacek wrote:
| I mean, sure, stipulate that. But there isn't even a kangaroo
| court for a service hosted in Europe.
| idrathernot wrote:
| Europe has plenty of "Kangaroo courts" of their own and
| partnerships like five eyes encourages authorities to share
| information. The UK's NSA equivalent doesn't need to worry
| about infringing on an American's 4th amendment right and
| technically (if you don't think about it) the NSA has
| plausible deniability if the UK shares this information.
| And vise versa with UK citizens or any western government.
| jonathanstrange wrote:
| I think OP meant the EU. The UK is known to be a
| totalitarian surveillance state and has been less free
| than the US in that respect for a long time.
| foldr wrote:
| "Surveillance state" is debatable. I would disagree, but
| I've had that debate too many times on HN recently, and
| don't propose to start it again here.
|
| However, to call the UK "totalitarian" is just an abuse
| of language. The country is not run by a single all-
| powerful party or dictator. It's especially odd to use
| this word and then make a comparison to the US, which
| (though it is not totalitarian either by any stretch of
| the imagination) is currently in the midst of an
| executive power grab, with demands for a level of
| partisan loyalty from civil servants that remains
| unthinkable in the UK.
|
| I don't know what your goal is here, but if you want to
| persuade the average person in the UK to change their
| minds about the extent to which the government should be
| able to access surveillance data, it helps not to bundle
| your arguments together with wild misstatements.
| jonathanstrange wrote:
| You're right I shouldn't have used the adjective
| "totalitarian." It was the kind of mindless parroting of
| phrases that I dread myself, so thank you for pointing
| that out! The UK has extremely strict surveillance laws,
| which are incompatible with EU legislation by now, so
| it's not a typical example of European countries in that
| respect. That's all I meant to say.
| foldr wrote:
| Are you referring to this?
| https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/13/gchq-
| data-co...
|
| If so, that was a judgment about legislation that is no
| longer current (and wasn't when the judgment was issued).
| It may be that current legislation is also incompatible
| with EU law (IANAL, I'm not arguing that point), but
| AFAIK there is no court judgment to that effect.
| jonathanstrange wrote:
| No, I didn't talk about court judgments. Yes, I had
| various aspects of the Regulation of the Investigatory
| Powers Act and recent additions to the Investigatory
| Powers Act in mind.
|
| > _It may be that current legislation is also
| incompatible with EU law (IANAL, I'm not arguing that
| point), but AFAIK there is no court judgment to that
| effect._
|
| Quite possibly but that wasn't my point. The point is
| that the UK is by far more of a surveillance state than
| any EU country, at least to my knowledge. UK legislation
| is not typical for a European country in that respect.
| People can go to prison in the UK for not handing over an
| encryption password and the UK has just effectively
| banned end-to-end encryption (if you put a backdoor in
| it, it's no longer end-to-end encryption).
| foldr wrote:
| I'm just responding to the specific claim regarding the
| incompatibility of _current_ UK legislation with EU law.
| AFAIK this is not an established fact. It's an
| increasingly hypothetical question, though not entirely
| so.
|
| There are EU countries with key disclosure laws. See e.g.
| France and Ireland on this list:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law
| jonathanstrange wrote:
| Of course, it's not an established fact. Who would
| establish that fact? The UK is not a member of the EU. I
| _was_ talking about the _current_ UK legislation and I
| stand by what I stated. You disagree but have not
| presented any reasons why I should change my mind. You
| even said you 're not a lawyer and have not displayed any
| knowledge of EU _or_ UK legislation and practice. So you
| disagree. I understand that. There is no need to further
| continue this discussion.
|
| What I do know is that I won't be able to sell my
| software in the UK or to any UK citizens or to any
| citizens who want to use to to communicate with UK
| citizens because it uses secure end-to-end encryption.
| That's the important bit for me personally.
| Neonlicht wrote:
| When a famous media personality was assassinated the
| police managed to catch the killers within hours. Turns
| out they really DO track every car on the highway- it
| wasn't just bragging.
|
| Every rich country is a surveillance state.
| tptacek wrote:
| I don't mean that Europe has worse processes. I mean that
| the US IC doesn't care about those processes. They can
| just take whatever they want from European providers.
| idrathernot wrote:
| It's not even that they have to "break in." The government
| allows big tech companies to basically do whatever they want as
| long as big tech provides the government with an easy way to
| move forward with the parallel construction needed to bring
| case against literally anyone should officials be motivated to
| see that person imprisoned. Everything you've ever done can and
| will be used against you to maximum effect.
| int_19h wrote:
| Whatever legal requirements might be at play, the fundamental
| difference is that a US company will comply, whereas a non-
| cooperative external party would still need to be broken, which
| is very much non-trivial in the age of strong cryptography,
| even if you're NSA.
| panny wrote:
| >giants like Meta, Google, and Apple must collect as much of your
| personal data as possible
|
| Stopped reading there. If someone tries to sell a lie like that
| in their first five sentences, I can't trust anything they say.
| kome wrote:
| but it's the truth. where is the lie?
| Terr_ wrote:
| Hmmm... Perhaps an Apple fan, upset that the company's Not
| Quite As Bad policies aren't being celebrated?
| Jensson wrote:
| Must they really collect as much data as possible?
| bamboozled wrote:
| Is it a lie?
| haswell wrote:
| Meta and Google _must_ collect your data.
|
| Apple _does_ collect some of your data, but their business
| doesn 't depend on it, and I have some degree of control over
| how much I participate.
|
| I think it's a category error to include all three in the
| same sentence, but I don't think the author is _lying_. I do
| agree somewhat with the sentiment that such a lack of
| distinction calls the content into question, or at least the
| author 's framing of it.
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| Disagree. All three companies exist in the set of massively
| international megacorps who as a matter of routine daily
| business collect and distribute personal information of the
| individuals who use their service. Being precious about
| what percentage of their yearly revenue is generated by
| this activity seems weird.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > Being precious about what percentage of their yearly
| revenue is generated by this activity seems weird
|
| No one is being precious about it. They're debating
| whether or not the article is written in good faith.
| Jumping to a bad faith-based defence isn't going to
| change the mind of people who are concerned about things
| being done in bad faith.
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| To clarify, you're concerned that one or more arguments
| advanced in the article don't meet your personal
| definition of bad faith, bad faith is important to you,
| and as such the entire article is suspect? Entirely
| ignoring the central claims of bad faith handling of
| users sensitive information, we're skipping past that
| entirely to deconstruct a single sentence as a "gotcha"?
| One of us does not understand the other, clearly.
| haswell wrote:
| Good/bad faith isn't just about one's preference about a
| form of argument, but can also completely change the
| validity of the underlying argument.
|
| The point here is that bad faith is doing exactly that:
| making the legitimacy of the argument presented by the
| author fundamentally questionable. Comparing the core
| business model of a company that has invested in
| capabilities like Advanced Data Protection with Meta in
| an article highlighting the ways authorities can get your
| data...seems disingenuous at best, and just plain
| wrong/misleading.
|
| > _we 're skipping past that entirely to deconstruct a
| single sentence as a "gotcha"_
|
| When someone sets up a false premise, then yes,
| everything that comes after it is suspect.
| XorNot wrote:
| Google have stopped recording location history (opt-in)
| server side at all.
| fhchl wrote:
| Have been using proto mail for a few years now and highly
| recommend it. You will ever have a cute @pm.me address!
| th0ma5 wrote:
| Many people I know are switching away from them because of
| their alleged support of fascism.
| Gys wrote:
| I think they are mixing up who is supporting fascism...
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Can you provide any additional context for this? I haven't
| heard it, and a cursory search doesn't turn up anything
| obvious regarding their ties to fascism.
| cinema0747 wrote:
| Their CEO made some comments in support of Trump.
| https://theintercept.com/2025/01/28/proton-mail-andy-yen-
| tru...
| milesrout wrote:
| Ah yes. Everything I don't like is fascism.
|
| Ironically, we told you all for years that if you abused
| terms like fascist, Nazi, racist, etc then they would
| lose their power and their impact and people would ignore
| them in future. You were warned what would happen if you
| cried wolf.
| anonymous_user9 wrote:
| Sometimes there actually is a wolf, though.
|
| MAGA is a right-wing political movement that:
|
| -seeks to return the nation to a mythical superior past,
| by
|
| -empowering an extraordinary leader who represents the
| will of the people, in order to
|
| -expel inferior/unworthy ethnicities, and
|
| -expunge left/"Marxist" influences from art and culture.
|
| These are all characteristics of Fascism specifically,
| not the authoritarian actions that people casually call
| fascist.
| _heimdall wrote:
| > expel inferior/unworthy ethnicities
|
| Is this happening? Or a stated goal?
|
| I know they're deporting people who aren't here legally
| (that's a whole other debate), but I'm not aware of them
| actively targeting anyone based on race of ethnicity
| regardless of their legal status.
| ichicoro wrote:
| I don't know, is it? The US has had Trump as POTUS for
| four weeks and he's already doing a lot of what was
| "promised" in [Project
| 2025](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025)...
| blactuary wrote:
| Yes, they are currently targeting Venezuelans and
| Haitians who have legal status
| officeplant wrote:
| https://www.reuters.com/world/us/native-americans-say-
| tribal...
|
| There has also been posts from schools in Texas
| recommending kids on field trips keep legal documentation
| on them because ICE is stopping school buses for
| investigations.
|
| https://www.newsweek.com/texas-school-district-bus-
| immigrati...
|
| At what point do you pull your head out of the sand and
| stare into reality.
| milesrout wrote:
| The boy who cried wolf is only a meaningful story because
| he is eventually eaten by a wolf.
|
| However, your third point is a bit breathless. They
| aren't expelling anyone based on ethnicity. They want to
| deport illegal aliens. It isn't their fault so many of
| those aliens are from one country. The Nazis were
| expelling and killing Jews that had been in Europe for
| centuries lawfully. And, yknow, the whole killing them
| thing! The human experiments. The slave labour camps.
|
| You are forgetting that fascist regimes go to war with
| their neighbours for territory, ignore the law, suspend
| democracy and have secret police to enforce political
| orthodoxy. Trump is an isolationist and he hasn't done
| any of the rest, yet at least.
|
| Also don't forget that for all the stick Trump gets about
| immigration, all the Democratic presidents I can remember
| claim that they want to control the border too, and claim
| they can do so better. Hardly illustrative of fascism...
| 20after4 wrote:
| What about threatening to annex Canada and Greenland,
| eliminating birthright citizenship or expanding the
| Guantanamo Bay concentration camp?
| TheLegace wrote:
| Yes, ask any Canadian how they feel about their
| sovereignty right now. Let me know how the Riviera in
| Gaza is going to work out and enjoy that vacation in the
| Gulf of America. Do you remember when Solemeni got
| assassinated. I also hope your not what he calls "vermin"
| and end up in Guantanamo Bay. Just because they're so
| dumb and incompetent and incapable of accomplishing their
| goals(at this moment) doesn't make a spade a spade.
| Honestly I am not even surprised by this anymore your
| post describes exactly why fascism takes root, just
| endless justification of authoritarianism.
| milesrout wrote:
| There is no threat towards Canadian sovereignty
| obviously. The Riviera in Gaza would be a lot better than
| the current situation in which its biggest industry is
| exporting rockets into Israel. Also not territorial
| expansion as Gaza isn't a neighbour. Imperialism? Yes.
| But look at the world. It functioned much better in most
| places when imperial powers controlled more of it. That
| isn't an excuse for them to invade each other, which
| never ended well. Also he is just using it as a
| negotiating tactic with Jordan and Egypt obviously.
|
| Changing the name of some water isn't territorial
| expansion or authoritarianism.
|
| Solemeni was a terrorist. A dead terrorist is a good
| terrorist. If you attack a sovereign country then you
| should expect to be targeted. Fuck around? Find out.
|
| Obama closed Gitmo. He promised to, remember, so he must
| have. And he withdrew from Afghanistan, remember? He said
| so in between claiming that marriage was only between a
| man and a woman. What a hero of the left.
|
| Feel free to tell me I am wrong when I actually am
| instead of just when your imagination runs wild and you
| see "authoritarianism" in your cereal. Killing terrorists
| is authoritarianism lol. And drone striking children
| isn't?
| nullstyle wrote:
| > There is no threat towards Canadian sovereignty
| obviously. The Riviera in Gaza would be a lot better than
| the current situation in which its biggest industry is
| exporting rockets into Israel.
|
| Like there is no threat to Medicaid? Here's the
| authoritarianism: Trump is clearly setting us up for a
| major constitutional crisis by way of his lying bullshit.
| Go see the way he talked to the governor of maine and
| tell me you dont hear the threats? You might not be a
| Nazi, but you're sure damn close.
| Neonlicht wrote:
| Actually I think the message that people should get is
| that folks LIKE fascism.
|
| Germans loved Hitler until Stalingrad.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| What I've heard is that hosting in Switzerland concerns
| right-leaning people.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I would love a privacy-friendly (e.g. Proton or similar-supplied)
| log in option on lots of websites. Log in with Google is what
| keeps me using Gmail.
| j-bos wrote:
| Proton has Proton Pass, even supports passkeys if you're into
| that.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Yeah, that looks quite good! Not quite a log in with Google,
| but an interesting alternative.
| lazyeye wrote:
| Selling peoples personal data has been around for longer than
| people realise
|
| The Hank Show https://www.amazon.com/dp/1250209277/
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