Notices by ar.al🌻 (aral@mastodon.ar.al), page 7

Riddle me this: I’m a for-profit corporation that says it exists to protect your privacy and yet I couldn’t exist without the billions of dollars I get from companies that exist by violating your privacy.

Who am I?

Any guesses?

Hint: M______ C__________

Everyone, read this, and then evaluate Mozilla’s actions and excuses by its criteria.

https://feedbin.com/blog/2018/09/11/private-by-default/

“Private by default” is the only definition of privacy that matters. Not “choice”.

Remember that every time you hear #Mozilla harp on about how “yes, it may not be private by default BUT YOU HAVE CHOICE.” Fuck choice! Make it private by default, you billion-dollar hypocrites.

#EthicalTechnology vs #SurveillanceCapitalism

Dear folks making custom emojis for Mastodon, a note on accessibility from @laura:

“So while word_word or wordword seems to be the standard for multiple-word emoji on Mastodon, using camel case is probably more accessible.“

More tips at: https://laurakalbag.com/custom-emoji-on-mastodon/

@Gargron Another problem with #MegaInstances is that development begins to favour their form, needs, and resources. Hence we have heavyweight components like Elastic Search that mega instances can implement but which are nigh-on impossible for individual instances to support. So we now have two classes of nodes and the feature disparity will further exasperate the trend towards centralised nodes. Remember that it was superior search + “free” hosting made Gmail what it is today.

Here’s an idea: form a voluntary “Fediverse Code” that limits the size of instances to a small number. Say 100 or, at most 1,000. Any instances larger than that size are blocked.

The mega-instances we have today, like .social, voluntarily agree to cull their numbers over a period of time; aiding the migration to other instances.

The fediverse is already hugely centralised and unless we do something about it, it will be ruled by a handful of feudal lords/Mini-Jacks.

CC @Gargron

Dear Fediverse,

Soon, some venture capitalist will put $5 million into a startup that offers free fediverse accounts with unlimited storage, etc.

Unless every other instance instantly blocks such a service from Day 1, you can kiss your fediverse goodbye and say hello to a new Gmail. Once network effects kick in, they will make the rules.

It _can_ happen here but you have an opportunity to kill it before it does.

#centralisation #fediverse

If any of you are waiting on an approval to follow my account, that’s some sort of a bug. I don’t have follower approvals on. Not sure why that’s happening.

Take a fucking bow, folks.

http://wilwheaton.net/2018/08/the-world-is-a-terrible-place-right-now-and-thats-largely-because-it-is-what-we-make-it/

I’m all for speaking truth to power but I don’t understand screaming your version of someone else’s reality into their face while they categorically deny it & profess support for your cause until you break them down. What I’ve seen here is nothing short of bullying. And no, it doesn’t make it right because he was on a TV show once.

Don’t @ me. Or do; I know where the block button is & mine’s wired to mew like a kitten… it’s just the cutest 🐈

@wilw Not sure if you can still see replies here but here’s my unsolicited 5¢ worth: Leaving the fediverse is like leaving the Web; you don’t need to to play by your own rules. You just need your own site. Get Hugo (@mastohost) to set up mastodon.wilwheaton.net, block who you want, and take control of your own presence on the fediverse. Unlike Twitter, each of us decides what the fediverse is. We shape it. Stay, on your own terms, & help make it better by example.

“We [derive] value [by violating] your privacy.”

#SurveillanceCapitalism

@Edent “Google is a company with nearly unlimited resources. It often chooses to use its power for the greater good of the Internet.”

Seriously?

Google is a surveillance capitalist. Its business model – how it makes its money – is to track you across the web and beyond, profile you, and exploit that intimate insight to manipulate your behaviour.

Terence, I’ve known you for yonks. I’m perplexed how you can write this. Please don't be the doctor in the cigarette ads.

It’s not data ethics, it’s ethics.

It’s not data privacy, it’s privacy.

It’s not digital rights, it’s human rights in the digital/networked age.

Let’s make sure we keep the focus on what’s important and not allow well-understood terms, concepts, and existing rights to be redefined by those with vested interests in clouding* the conversation and eroding our human rights by backdooring in a new set of lesser rights for the digital/networked aspects of our selves.

* See what I did there? 😛

@tindall @enkiv2 It is quite mindblowing to me to see a criticism of the Web that entirely ignores the socioeconomic reasons for its being the way it is. The Web isn’t broken “because JavaScript”, mainstream technology, including the Web is broken because Surveillance Capitalism doesn’t build tools for people, it builds tools to farm people. All that bloat is the farming mechanisms: tracking you, profiling you, addicting you and placating you.

#ItWasNeverYOURTwitter #ButItCanBeYourMastodon

https://joinmastodon.org/

#BreakingMyTwitter

Fuck you, Erdoğan, fuck you very much.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-germany-arrests/turkey-arrests-german-citizen-source-idUSKBN1L11HO

PS. I stand by every word I said. Tyrants come and go. I will visit the land of my birth again one day. https://2018.ar.al/notes/my-speech-at-general-assembly-in-berlin-november-2017/

PPS. Remember this next time you feel like booking a holiday to Erdoğan’s Turkey.

Folks: yes, venture capitalists and Silicon Valley gave us surveillance capitalism but now they say they’re sorry and want to give us the cure. Shouldn’t we just let them?

Me: “Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.” – Narcotics Anonymous, 1981.

The greatest challenge for Mastodon now that it’s getting mainstream attention is to figure out how to resist “embrace and privatise”.

Tomorrow Google announces Gastodon. What do you do to stop it becoming Gmail?

Suggestions:

1. Push for instances of one

2. In order to make instances of one viable, simplify the complexity of the app itself: the lighter it is, the less dependencies, the easier it is to host. Installation should be no more difficult than sudo apt install mastodon

CC @Gargron

How to enable the Browse Files setting in GSConnect (and a suggestion for adding a principle to the @gnome design principles section of the human interface guidelines: Your application should work by default.)

https://ar.al/2018/08/03/how-to-enable-the-browse-files-setting-in-gsconnect/

I've just discovered the GSConnect Gnome Shell extension and my life has gotten infinitely better :)

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1319/gsconnect/

Works like a charm with my S9+ running LineageOS.

I’m truly blown away by the amazing work in this ecosystem that rivals and, at times, surpasses in execution and usability the efforts of multibillion-dollar corporate entities. Now to see if we can get folks to take a stand against surveillance capitalism and implement private defaults. I really hope so.

Web development on a phone with Hugo and Termux

https://ar.al/2018/07/30/web-development-on-a-phone-with-hugo-and-termux/