Notices by ar.al🌻 (aral@mastodon.ar.al), page 2

“In just one day, the eight richest men in America have seen their wealth increase by a combined $6.2 billion“

https://www.fastcompany.com/90503008/in-just-one-day-the-8-richest-americans-made-6-2-billion

When widespread suffering leads to exceptional gains by a handful, you know you have a very broken system. Capitalism is cancer.

Folks in the UK, about the government’s contact tracing app made by folks from Vote Leave & GCHQ:

- Do not download it.- Do not use it.- Tell friends & family not to either.

This is a mass surveillance app. It won’t protect you. But it will create a very dangerous precedent.

If you teach development, the first thing you should be teaching… before HTML, CSS, JS, etc., is ETHICS.

Teach your students to avoid 3rd-party surveillance-based APIs/components. Teach them to de-centre themselves… to build tools owned and controlled by the people who use them.

You cannot advocate for privacy without advocating for the end of the colonial/imperialist mindset. Decentralisation is a prerequisite for protecting human rights and democracy in the digital network age.

“Palantir, the US big data firm founded by the rightwing billionaire Peter Thiel, is working with Faculty, a British AI startup [to process] large volumes of confidential UK patient information in a data-mining operation…”

Be worried. Be very worried.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/12/uk-government-using-confidential-patient-data-in-coronavirus-response

How Apple and Google will cure COVID-19 and how you can opt into it if you want to keep your job

https://ar.al/2020/04/11/how-apple-and-google-will-cure-covid-19-and-how-you-can-opt-into-it-if-you-want-to-keep-your-job/

Watch the recording of my interview with Al Jazeera live this morning (contains quick summary notes).

#Apple #Google #ContactTracingFramework #COVID19 #SurveillanceCapitalism

These fuckers on birdsite are trying to get your taxes in the UK to pay for startups:

https://twitter.com/SaveOurStartups

Save our startups? Fuck your startups!

Startups—VC-funded temporary businesses with the same success criteria as cancer (exponential growth)—ARE THE REASON we have surveillance capitalism.

#NotOnePenny of your taxes should go to them.

#SaveOurStartups #FuckYourStartups

Thanks to @mauromorales, there is now a Spanish translation of my article Slavery 2.0 and how to avoid it: a practical guide for cyborgs:

Esclavitud 2.0 y como evitarla: una guía práctica para cyborgs.

https://www.mauromorales.com/esclavitud-2-0-y-como-evitarla.html

You can also read the original version in English (https://ar.al/2019/05/02/slavery-2.0-and-how-to-avoid-it-a-practical-guide-for-cyborgs/) and the German version published by Kulturstiftung des Bundes (https://www.kulturstiftung-des-bundes.de/de/magazin/magazin_32/sklaverei_20_und_wie_man_sie_vermeiden_kann_eine_praktische_anleitung_fuer_cyborgs.html)

In the digital network age, the difference between fascism and freedom will be decided by who owns and controls the means of communication. Is it corporations (and by extension, governments) or is it us: individuals?

If we lose this one, the 2030s and 2040s won’t be like the 1930s and 1940s; they’ll be like the 1930s and 1940s amplified by the full destructive power of a hundred years of exponential increase in technological capability.

Just heard that a documentary on surveillance and privacy that a friend of mine has been working for five years is finally complete. Just skimmed it and it looks great. And damn do I look younger in it. Can’t wait to share it with you once it’s released :)

Folks, you know those things you share with me privately about the shit that’s going on in the industry and in the orgs that are supposed to be fighting for our rights… can you please start sharing them publicly too? I appreciate the info but we need more than me speaking out.

The recording of my talk today on the future of Internet regulation at the European Parliament is now available to watch.

Starts at 01:14:00 at https://web-greensefa.streamovations.be/index.php/event/stream/the-future-internet-regulation

#DigitalServicesAct #SurveillanceCapitalism #Mastodon #SmallTech #GDPR #EU

CC @Mastodon @Gargron

So I'm not going to announce it properly until tomorrow but I've just deployed Site.js version 12.6.0, which adds Windows 10 support. If any of you want to kick the tires and let me know if the sky falls down or anything, I'd appreciate it.

It also has macOS Catalina support and a bit more polish in general across all platforms.

https://sitejs.org

#SiteJS #SmallTechnology

Spot the two computers :)

Spoiler: Raspberry Pi 4 rear-left, feeding the 4K monitor. Raspberry Pi 3 with touchscreen in foreground.)

Mastodon, circa 1934…

Me: Don’t support IBM, they’re selling mainframes and maintaining them for the Third Reich, don’t support Hugo Boss, they’re making uniforms for the Nazi, don’t support VW…

Folks: We know lots of great people who work at IBM, Hugo Boss, and VW that don’t agree with Hitler. What do you want them to do, quit? You need to pipe down and appreciate how they’re changing the system from within.

Bhavani Esapathi (https://twitter.com/@bhaesa) is my friend and a dear, wonderful person who has been battling autoimmune disease for as long as I’ve known her and doing so while helping others. Now the Tories want to hand her a death sentence and deport her. We cannot let this happen.

Read about her ordeal:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-immigration-deportation-woman-coma-home-office-crohns-disease-bhavani-espathi-a8903271.html

Sign/support this petition and help save her life:

https://www.change.org/p/home-office-grant-bhavani-esapathi-a-visa-so-she-can-live

Tell your friends, call your elected representatives, make some noise.

#SaveBhavani

Israeli espionage firm hacks WhatsApp. Can install spyware with missed call.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/may/13/whatsapp-urges-users-to-upgrade-after-discovering-spyware-vulnerability

My advice: dump WhatsApp today and start using Wire (https://wire.com/en/products/personal-secure-messenger/). Tell your friends and family to do the same. (It’s a simple, free download on all app stores. Easy to use, doesn’t require your phone number, and their business model is based on charging for commercial use and for pro accounts.)

You can find more alternatives on @switchingsocial (https://switching.social/ethical-alternatives-to-whatsapp-and-skype/)

#WhatsApp

“Google’s Sundar Pichai: Privacy Should Not Be a Luxury Good … Yes, we use data to make products more helpful for everyone. But we also protect your information.” – NYTimes “The Privacy Project”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/opinion/google-sundar-pichai-privacy.html#click=https://t.co/yMiIlMwdce

1. Fuck you, Sundar
2. Fuck you, NYTimes, and fuck your “privacy project”, you whitewashing muppets

#SurveillanceCapitalism #WhiteWashing #BigData #BigTech #Google #NYTimes

Folks, I’m seeing a lot of people recommend setting xpinstall.signatures.required to false to fix the Firefox extensions issue.

⚠️ DO NOT DO THIS! ⚠️

It disables signature checking on extensions which means that you open yourself up to malicious extensions if you install any new ones or if you have auto updates on.

Either follow the instructions here https://nixnet.xyz/ by @amolith

Or go the officially recommended (but less private) route: https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/102039553570119536

#Firefox

So #Mozilla fixed the #Firefox certificate expiration issue that disabled all your extensions. All you have to do to get the fix is to check:

✅ Allow Firefox to send technical and interaction data to Mozilla

✅ Allow Firefox to install and run studies

:gargron:

(Don’t forget to turn these off right after your extensions show up again. I restarted the browser but not sure if that’s necessary.)